Paul R wrote:
I wouldn't validate a form in onblur; onsubmit is the correct place, and
assuming you have an INPUT type="submit" element somewhere, you don't
need to intercept the enter key: the form will do it for you.
I'll second that. Trapping a user in a field that will not let
them quit until they get it right can cause frustration. The
field should be correct when the form is submitted, not
necessarily at every moment before that.
Also, some browsers do not lose focus on the current input field
when submit is clicked - onblur never fires, the form just
submits.
Users get used to how their browser works. If it normally does
not submit when enter is pressed, they expect it not to. A
textarea should accept "enter" key presses without submitting.
If users start to learn that their browser will submit the form
whenever they press enter, they become nervous about putting new
lines into textareas.
Having a form that sometimes submits when enter is pressed but
not other times can be really confusing for some users.
If you *really* want to validate onblur, then write the error to
the page (design it with a space say immediately adjacent to the
input for error messages when required) and make the messages
very helpful (and friendly). That way, the user gets feedback
on the validation but doesn't get an annoying alert.
If users don't want to use mouseclicks to submit the form (and
many data entry operators hate using a mouse), consider using
some other key or key combination (say alt + enter) to submit
the form from the keyboard and put the submit immediately
after the last input field in the tabindex so that once the last
field is completed, tab then enter will submit the form
(dependent on validation of course...).
Hope that all helps! :-)
--
Fred
