[eluser]beemr[/eluser]
I want the textarea to be available even when it is not required, but the consequence of that is that the textarea will always post an empty string to the controller. I like having the validation rules in the model, but I suppose I can set the rules in the controller this time. Less elegant, though
Essentially, I don't want an empty string to be allowed to replace a NULL. I understand if that is too onerous a schema to impose. Thanks for the tips, though.