[aceofspades]

Thank you for the help. I made the adjustments that you suggested:

At the start of my editor_clientscript i have this javascript:

<!-- EDITOR SCRIPTS -->
<script language="JavaScript">

var running = false;

function start(){
running = true;
setTimeout('run();',500);
}

function run(){
document.vbform.display.value = document.vbform.message.value.length;
if(running)
setTimeout('run();',100);
}

function stop(){
running = false;
}

</script>
....

In my editor_toolbar_off template i have this at the start:

<!-- START NORMAL TEXT AREA -->
$vBeditTemplate[clientscript]

<div class="controlbar" style="text-align:$stylevar[left]">
<textarea name="message" id="{$editorid}_textarea" rows="10" cols="60" style="width:$stylevar[messagewidth]; height:60px" tabindex="1">$newpost[message]</textarea>
<p><input type="text" name="display" /></p>
</div>

Attached is the situation i have at the moment, i have the box for the numbers to display in, but when i type the javascript doesnt seem to register the letters and so the numbers dont go up.