SharePoint List add comments as formatted text

Question

I'm not sure if this is even possible but thought someone must have done something similar. What I'm looking for is the ability for a user to enter a "comment" and that comment populate another field as formatted text. In other words, add the date, username and the comment. I was thinking perhaps there could be a webpart that opens up on clicking a button, prompts user with a text box. Hit save and it populates another field within the EditForm with the date, username & comment.

I know there is the ability to use versioning but there I do not like the way that SharePoint handles these and would just like to control it through another process. Currently using SP2010. Initially I was able to do this using InfoPath but managing multiple pages and fields was time consuming through InfoPath. Now I'm using the standard EditForm with DynamicForms but I'm limited on the comments side.

Anyone have any recommendations or thoughts on how this could be done? P.S. The form is used to track issues with a specific software. The comments would simply be for logging follow-up items, status' from the vendor, etc. Usually less than 100 characters. The final comments field would look similar to:

10/8/2013: UserName, Peter - Testing using xyz.

10/7/2013: Smith, Peter - Sent item to vendor for review.

Answer 1

There is a complex workaround for the same. Create one more multi line column and make the box hidden on the new/edit page. Using Jquery start populating the field with your appending values such as :10/8/2013: User Name, Peter. So every time a user writes something in the original comment box the jQuery takes the current value and adds to the old values with the time stamp. But only in display form show the hidden multiline text column. So that user would get to see the all the comments. But in Edit and new form keep the original text box.

If you need any help on jQuery please let me know.