function ellipsis () {
        var ellipsisSeq = 0;
        var ellipsisEls = document.getElementsByTagName('span');
        for (var i = 0; i < ellipsisEls.length; i++) {
          var el = ellipsisEls[i];
          if (el.className.match(/ellipsis/)) {
            var maxLength = el.getAttribute("maxLength");
            if (!maxLength) maxLength = 10;

            var longText = el.innerHTML;
            var shortText = trim(stripTags(el.innerHTML));
            if (shortText.length < maxLength) continue;
            shortText = shortText.substring(0, maxLength);

            el.id = "ellipsis" + ellipsisSeq++;
            el.innerHTML = 
                '<span id="' + el.id + 'short">' + shortText +'</span>';
          }
        }
}

function stripTags (t) {
        while (t.match(/<.*>/)) t = t.replace(/<[^>]*>/, "");
        return t;
}

function trim (t) {
        return t.replace(/^[ \r\n\t]*/, "").replace(/[ \r\n\t]*$/, "");
}