Loss of Form field contents when the browser BACK button is pressed

[Jonathan Strange]

I have a website that uses Forms, and if I complete the form fields,
submit the form, realise that there was an error or omission, and then
hit the Back button, the form fields are all empty. This is extremely
frustrating.

However, what's more frustrating is that this behaviour doesn't happen
all of the time - sometimes the field contents will still be there,
and other times the fields will be empty. Also, sometimes the one form
will not retain its input whereas another form will.

Can anyone please explain what's going on? Is it an HTML issue or an
IE thing? More importantly, how do I fix it so that the form field
contents are always retained when I hit the Back button?

For background it's the same whether I use IE5 or IE6 - haven't tried
any other browsers. Also most of the forms are on basic JSPs, or JSPs
with Struts; but there doesn't seem to be any consistency in which
pages display this behaviour. Sometimes it's the simple JSPs and other
times it's the Struts ones.

Any help would be gratefully received.

[Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen]

Jonathan Strange wrote:

I have a website that uses Forms, and if I complete the form fields,
submit the form, realise that there was an error or omission, and then
hit the Back button, the form fields are all empty. This is extremely
frustrating. Can anyone please explain what's going on? Is it an HTML issue or an
IE thing? More importantly, how do I fix it so that the form field
contents are always retained when I hit the Back button?

For background it's the same whether I use IE5 or IE6 - haven't tried
any other browsers. Also most of the forms are on basic JSPs, or JSPs
with Struts; but there doesn't seem to be any consistency in which
pages display this behaviour. Sometimes it's the simple JSPs and other
times it's the Struts ones.

Any help would be gratefully received.

You could post a link to a page to show the
problem (help us to help you...)
Both Firefox and Opera are free to download.

Anyway, I had the same problem with my php form,
it was solved when I replaced
<?php
if (stristr($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],
"application/xhtml+xml")) {
header("Content-type: application/xhtml+xml;
charset=iso-8859-1");
} else {
header("Content-type: text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1");
}
?>
with
<?php header("Content-Type: text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1"); ?>

And I'm curious - has JSP anything to do with
javascript? Do we need to enable javascript to use
your forms?
--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen
http://home.online.no/~ingerfaj/

[Michael Winter]

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 09:10:19 +0100, Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen
<In***@neseblod.invalid> wrote:

[snip]

And I'm curious - has JSP anything to do with javascript?

No. JSP - JavaServer Pages (<URL:http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/>).
Effectively, server-side programming with Java.

[snip]

Mike

--
Michael Winter
Replace ".invalid" with ".uk" to reply by e-mail.

[Jonathan Strange]

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen <In***@neseblod.invalid> wrote in message news:<Mx********************@news4.e.nsc.no>...

Jonathan Strange wrote:

I have a website that uses Forms, and if I complete the form fields,
submit the form, realise that there was an error or omission, and then
hit the Back button, the form fields are all empty. This is extremely
frustrating.

Can anyone please explain what's going on? Is it an HTML issue or an
IE thing? More importantly, how do I fix it so that the form field
contents are always retained when I hit the Back button?

For background it's the same whether I use IE5 or IE6 - haven't tried
any other browsers. Also most of the forms are on basic JSPs, or JSPs
with Struts; but there doesn't seem to be any consistency in which
pages display this behaviour. Sometimes it's the simple JSPs and other
times it's the Struts ones.

Any help would be gratefully received.

You could post a link to a page to show the
problem (help us to help you...)
Both Firefox and Opera are free to download.

Anyway, I had the same problem with my php form,
it was solved when I replaced
<?php
if (stristr($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],
"application/xhtml+xml")) {
header("Content-type: application/xhtml+xml;
charset=iso-8859-1");
} else {
header("Content-type: text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1");
}
?>
with
<?php header("Content-Type: text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1"); ?>

And I'm curious - has JSP anything to do with
javascript? Do we need to enable javascript to use
your forms?

Unfortunately the site is behind a company firewall so you wouldn't be
able to access it anyway.

As for the solution you applied to your php form, I have absolutely no
knowledge of php and wouldn't know how to apply it to JSP.

Thanks anyway!

[Harrie]

Jonathan Strange said the following on 11/26/04 18:06:

Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen <In***@neseblod.invalid> wrote in message news:<Mx********************@news4.e.nsc.no>...

You could post a link to a page to show the
problem (help us to help you...)

Unfortunately the site is behind a company firewall so you wouldn't be
able to access it anyway.

You could try to make a bare bone version of that site/page and put it
up a web server which is accessible to all of us. By making a bare bone
version you might find the problem yourself.

I think Spartanicus has a page about this concept, but I can't find the
URL to it. Someone?

--
Regards
Harrie