Character Limits for Theme Options textarea

Hey Gang,

I’ve had a client make a somewhat unusual request. We’ve setup a theme admin panel for them to be able to input text for different parts of the homepage, and he wants to set a character limit to the fields so the text never gets too long. Within the options function the block looks like this:

$options[] = array( "name" => __('Block 1 Text','framework_localize'),
"desc" => "Enter your text for block 1.",
"id" => $shortname."_block_1_text",
"std" => "",
"type" => "textarea");

Is there some way to create a char limit when I’m not actually coding the field (where obviously I’d do a col and row limit within the selector.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks