Key events work in Netscape and IE, but not Firefox - what am I doing wrong

[Yobbo]

Hi All

I use the following script to stop users typing in anything but standard
chars (eg letters, numbers, etc) into a input textbox:

<!--
// 8 = backspace
// 9 = tab
// 46 = del
// 190 = period (full stop)
// >36 to <41 = 4 x arrow keys
// >47 to <58 = 0 to 9
// >64 to <91 = A to Z
// >95 to <106 = 0 to 9 on numeric keypad

function CheckCodeEntry( e) {
var key = (navigator.appN ame == "Netscape") ? e.which : e.keyCode;
var shiftcheck = (navigator.appN ame == "Netscape") ? e.SHIFT_MASK :
event.shiftKey;

if (shiftcheck) {
if (key == 8 || key == 9 ||
key == 46 || (key 36 && key < 41) ||
(key 63 && key < 74) || (key 64 && key < 91) ||
key == 189) {
return true;
}
else {
return false;
}
}

else {
if (key == 8 || key == 9 || key == 190 ||
key == 46 || (key 36 && key < 41) ||
(key 47 && key < 58) || (key 64 && key < 91) ||
(key 95 && key < 106) || key == 189) {
return true;
}
else {
return false;
}
}

}
//-->

The input box is set as follows:

<INPUT TYPE='TEXT' NAME='code' SIZE=30 onKeyDown='retu rn
CheckCodeEntry( event)' onKeydown='retu rn CheckCodeEntry( event)' VALUE="">

Although this appears to work fine in IE and Netscape, Safari and Firefox
only allows me to enter letters. They don't allow me to enter numbers.
Could you please advise as to what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks

Laphan

[RobG]

Yobbo wrote:

Hi All

I use the following script to stop users typing in anything but standard
chars (eg letters, numbers, etc) into a input textbox:

[...]

function CheckCodeEntry( e) {
var key = (navigator.appN ame == "Netscape") ? e.which : e.keyCode;
var shiftcheck = (navigator.appN ame == "Netscape") ? e.SHIFT_MASK :
event.shiftKey;

[...]

Although this appears to work fine in IE and Netscape, Safari and Firefox
only allows me to enter letters. They don't allow me to enter numbers.
Could you please advise as to what I'm doing wrong.

Firstly, using browser detection rather than feature detection.

Secondly, trying to use key codes to infer the characters entered - how
do you stop pasting of unwanted characters using a context menu?

Thirdly, validating on keystrokes. Use a regular expression to
validate the field when the form is submitted, you don't care what the
user puts in there before then or how they got it there (keystrokes,
pasted, auto-filled). It is much simpler to implement, more reliable
and will work in a greater variety of browsers.

If you want to warn of invalid characters before submission, use
onkeyup or onkeypress, use a RegExp to validate the current content and
write a message to the page warning of invalid input. Let the user fix
it in their own time however they wish.
--
Rob