Another gmail feature..

**krembo** · 10-08-2006, 10:24 PM

Hi all,
well, when there is an unanswered question there is only one place i come to..
This time I wonder about the "attach file" link in gmail.

It is interesting since clicking this link opens a hidden browse dialog box.

Basically, IE does not lets you set a value for file input field, and also does not allows you to initiate an "onclick();" event on it. It is a security matter.
If you try to do it and submit a form, the focus will be automatically set on the file input until you PRESS YOURSELF the browse button and select the file yourself.

Gmail comes over it. It lets you initiate the browse dialog from another link and then submit the form.

How do they do it?

btw: is it possible to change the label on the brose button from "browse.." to something else?

**krembo** · 10-08-2006, 11:45 PM

Look at the following code

when pressing the "aaa" button it opens the browse dialog and sets the value of the real file field. but when the submit is pressed, it clears the file field and sets the focus on it. the second "File_2" field works fine.

So how does google do this? They lets you open the browse screen from a link and the explorer handles it just fine!

<form name="form" action="?action=save" method="post" encType="multipart/form-data">

<input name="File_1" type="file" >

<input name="file" type="text">

<input name="Submit" type="submit" class="button" value="aaa" onClick="document.form.File_1.click(); document.form.file.value=document.form.File_1.value; return false;">

<input name="submit" type="submit" class="button" value="Upload" onclick='document.form.File_1.disabled=true;'>

<input name="File_2" type="file" >

</form>

**djr33** · 10-09-2006, 12:33 AM

gmail is insane. They have a chat built into it. And a heck of a lot of other stuff.
Have you even seen the source? There's nothing to it. It's a blank page.... just calling, with ajax, a heck of a lot of other pages.
Crazy.
Sorry, but not sure about this.
Maybe they just throw the focus to the browse button and fake the enter key?

**tech_support** · 10-09-2006, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by djr33

gmail is insane. They have a chat built into it. And a heck of a lot of other stuff.
Have you even seen the source? There's nothing to it. It's a blank page.... just calling, with ajax, a heck of a lot of other pages.
Crazy.
Sorry, but not sure about this.
Maybe they just throw the focus to the browse button and fake the enter key?

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