I’ve set up a feedback form using the PHP action. The form has several fields. In moving from one field to the next, if the user doesn’t move by tabbing but hits a Return/Enter instead, the Submit button is activated and the form is sent off. Is there a setting somewhere that would allow the user to use either tab or Return/Enter to move from field to field and then send the form only by clicking on the submit button?
Standar Browser behaviour is to Submit on Enter - there isn’t much you can do to change the behaviour to Tab on Enter.
You may be able to add some code that will only allow the Submit button to send the form but it is generally accepted that Forms have a standard functionality which is expected cross browser/platform and that it is not a good idea to mess with it.
If you are finding that your Tabbing does not take you logically through the form it helps to build the form into a Table which then gives it a logical structure that Tabs sequentially.
No, fortunately there’s no problem with the tabbing, the order works fine.
Thanks for the answer, David. We’ll just live with the standard behavior. One thing I would have tried had this form been all text fields rather than having 8 checkboxes in addition to the text fields, would have been to make the text fields into text areas. Then if enter were hit in one of the text areas it wouldn’t have triggered the Submit button. Don’t know what that would have been like, but it would have been worth a try, I think.
Thanks,
Martin
On Apr 17, 2011, at 7:34 PM, DeltaDave wrote:
Standar Browser behaviour is to Submit on Enter - there isn’t much you can do to change the behaviour to Tab on Enter.
You may be able to add some code that will only allow the Submit button to send the form but it is generally accepted that Forms have a standard functionality which is expected cross browser/platform and that it is not a good idea to mess with it.
If you are finding that your Tabbing does not take you logically through the form it helps to build the form into a Table which then gives it a logical structure that Tabs sequentially.
The thing is, you CAN kill the enter/return key entirely, but you
can’t also make it behave like a tab key. Or maybe you could, but it
would be a furious lash-up of code to find the next form element in
tab order, and set it to focus. But you’re swimming upstream here. The
return key is kinked by browsers to behave as a click on the next
Submit button in the current form. This is normally what a user
expects to happen.
Walter
On Apr 18, 2011, at 4:38 AM, Rice Martin wrote:
No, fortunately there’s no problem with the tabbing, the order works
fine.
Yes, but then that puts up an endless stream of error alerts, which
have to be cancelled, etc. It’s a tough one, with usability minefields
galore no matter how you attack it. I wonder where these users are
coming from who think that return should advance a field rather than
submit a form. What sort of application are they accustomed to, where
that’s the expected behavior?
Walter
On Apr 18, 2011, at 11:53 AM, chuckamuck wrote:
Couldn’t he also achieve the same thing by adding validation to his
form so that it cannot be completed until the appropriate fields
have been filled?
It’s not so much that there are armies of users who don’t know the expected behavior, I think. What I was trying to prevent were accidents. I’ve been online since 1980 starting at 300 baud. I truly know how forms work. Nevertheless, for some reason or another, when I was filling out my form to test it, at one point I accidentally hit return instead of tab – the Lord only knows why – and off it went. So I just thought that if there were an easy way to prevent these accidents, I’d try it.
But thanks to all for the considered responses – David, Walter, Chuckamuck. And, of course, the form will remain operative in the standard way and when accidents happen, so be it.
Thanks,
Martin
On Apr 18, 2011, at 12:19 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
Yes, but then that puts up an endless stream of error alerts, which have to be cancelled, etc. It’s a tough one, with usability minefields galore no matter how you attack it. I wonder where these users are coming from who think that return should advance a field rather than submit a form. What sort of application are they accustomed to, where that’s the expected behavior?
Walter
On Apr 18, 2011, at 11:53 AM, chuckamuck wrote:
Couldn’t he also achieve the same thing by adding validation to his form so that it cannot be completed until the appropriate fields have been filled?
when I was filling out my form to test it, at one point I accidentally hit return instead of tab
Maybe because it was your own form!
Personally I am v cautious when filling out a form that I consider important - the fact that you were just testing and not genuinely completing probably led to your error.