ColdFusion 2018 CFTextarea

I appreciate that you may be getting frustrated about all this, RaehmLeonard, and I see you've offered two replies since my last one. But let's take things one step at a time. I'm pretty sure we'll get you to a solution. 

First, yes, people DO use those tags, but things DO change from one release to another. That's why I sought clarification first on when this HAD worked for you (if at all).  But then I also asked something very specific, which you did not answer. I will try again:

And are you familiar with using browser "dev tools"? If so, does its "network" tab show any failed requests calling back to CF (for javascript files, etc.)? And/or does its "console" tab show javascript errors?

It's ok if you are not familiar with such tools. Just say so. But if you are, did you try it? The reason I ask is that it may have indicated a particular common problem.

As you may know, there are in fact some features deprecated (and still others "retired") in CF2018. They are listed at https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/deprecated-features.html, and while cftextarea is not listed as one of them, I'm willing to bet that's a mistake and that it is. Let me explain.

If you DO see errors in your dev tools, especially 404's related to calls back CF, then you are hitting the problem that is listed at the bottom of that page. And you can follow the advice offered there, to add the yui library back to CF.

If that fixes your problem, great. Let us know, and we (or you) can get word to Adobe to update that page to mention CFTEXTAREA also. And to your last comment, we could get them also to add to that doc page on the tag itself to clarify that it's deprecated in 2018 (as was done for the pages for related things affected by this, like cfcalendar, cftree, and cfmenu.

BTW, even being marked "deprecated" or "retired" that doesn't mean one CAN'T use the feature. As explained on that page, deprecated means "no longer updated" which means most should not continue using, or should be seeking alternatives. And retired means not working by default--so in this case requiring that re-adding in of the YUI library.

That's why people would indeed have problems with this out of the box. So yes, "surely we have had users with this problem", and yes some have turned to "seeking alternative [embeddable web] text editors".

Indeed, some may soon chime in (perhaps without even reading my comment here) to point out that you SHOULD not be using any CF tags that generate and use javascript, and that CF's support of those has always been "horrible" and "dated", and that "any good developer" should know that they SHOULD in fact be seeking out alternatives to such things as text editors, tree controls, etc. And there are of course many such alternatives, in most of the many available javascript/ajax frameworks out there.

But since you're asking about getting CFTextarea working, that's what I have been focused on. I'd love to hear whether the above has helped, and if not, again what you see in the dev tools in the network and/or console tabs. The diagnostics to solve your problem may well be right there. Let us know what you find.

There can be various explanations. First, is this a new problem? If so, what changed? Or are you trying it for the first time? If so, what CF version? and what update is applied?

And are you familiar with using browser "dev tools"? If so, does its "network" tab show any failed requests calling back to CF (for javascript files, etc.)? And/or does its "console" tab show javascript errors?