pangea33 wrote:
I think that can be accomplished with some dhtml, which I will try to
help with, but what is the form layout? Are there multiple ways
(buttons, links, etc) by which the user can submit this form? If not,
won't the mouse position at submit time always be right on the submit
button?
Thank you.
I need a generic solution. I have a java application that is, among
other things,
be a 'forms editor' that makes hierarchical forms (some widgets
can contain other widgets). The resulting forms (abstract data entry
forms,
generated from the Java application) can be saved
server side as xml, stored in Exist, Xindice, SleepyCat, Oracle, etc
That backend XML can be used to automatically generate data entry
forms, at a later date, instantiated as either Java Swing Widgets or
as html forms.
......it gets complicated. Data (from the generated forms) is stored
server side too. A servlet can splice XML form definitions together
with historical data sets (mostly for documenting complex laboratory
data)
so any historical data set can be re-displayed, at any time, as it
looked
when it was originally saved..........so data entry sessions
can finished up over a period of time.
All of that works. The Java application part is slick as schoolboy's
sleeve
in January. But the html side is still a bit clunky. Form users
can dynamically add new options to select menus in the
html data entry form, but each "new option" event generates
a post, so the server can update a tree of DefaultMutableTreeNodes,
that represent the backend XML.
So it isn't always a submit button that generates a post.
And posts from a very long form end up shifting the screen to a new
vertical position.
I think I need to track scrollbar positioning somehow, and
rebuild that scrollbar position after the post. Each hierarchical
widget
in the XML-like form has a uniquely named anchor tag.
Ajax is a possibility...............but I'd like to solve it without
Ajax if at all possible.