Forms____and Characters

**Samsoske** · 03-16-2006, 05:39 PM

Hi- Me again.

Just want to know, how do you restrict characters in forms, because for the life of me, I CANT REMEMBER. I know reading a HTML book a while back that there is simple HTML line that just goes in <form tag> itself... ??? Does anyone out there Know?

I know there must be a javaScript out there that can do this, but thats not what i am looking for though, JuSt ThE aBoVe...

**jscheuer1** · 03-16-2006, 05:48 PM

I really don't think they have that. A quick Google search turned up nothing (nothing using only HTML). Besides that, I'm reasonably sure I would have come across something like that at least once by now if it existed. Perhaps what you remember seeing was the onchange javascript event that invoked a validation function of one sort or another or something like that. That could look (by itself) like pure HTML.

Here's being open to being wrong on this one but, I don't think so.

**Samsoske** · 03-16-2006, 06:35 PM

Yes, but I remember it being put in the tag itself....I am very sure...

It looked like some type of array <pattern [a-z]> ????? type thing....

I will have to find that book....

**jscheuer1** · 03-16-2006, 09:24 PM

That's the thing about an onchange or other event, it could look something like so:

HTML Code:

<input type="text" onchange="if (/[0-9]/.test(this.value)){this.value=''};">

That, for instance, would reset the filed to blank if a number were entered and focus were directed away from the input. It is contained in the tag but, this is javascript. If the code for the event were written more economically, or if there were a supporting function elsewhere on or available to the page, more could be done with even less appearing in the tag. Seeing just the portion in the tag could be misleading in such cases.

**Samsoske** · 03-16-2006, 10:52 PM

Yeah i guess that's what it looked like.... So i just got mixed up with the java?

Thankyou for your help, I tried it on my site's forms and it pretty much does
what i was looking for....

..:Oh yes, one last question:..

..::Is it posible to customize you text imput areas like you can with
the submit and clear buttons, with the <INPUT TYPE="submit" onClick="return checkmail(this.form.Email)" value="submit" style="color: Black; background-color: White"> tag atributes?

And once again Thanks.

**jscheuer1** · 03-16-2006, 11:23 PM

Originally Posted by Samsoske

Thankyou for your help, I tried it on my site's forms and it pretty much does
what i was looking for....

Well, what exactly did you have in mind? You can also use the replace method to simply remove the offending character(s) leaving the rest of the text as entered. This could be done onkeyup instead of onchange. Here is a version for that, it disallows anything except numbers:

HTML Code:

<input type="text" onkeyup="value=value.replace(/[^\d]/g, '')">

Originally Posted by Samsoske

..::Is it posible to customize you text imput areas like you can with
the submit and clear buttons, with the <INPUT TYPE="submit" onClick="return checkmail(this.form.Email)" value="submit" style="color: Black; background-color: White"> tag atributes?

Sure! One thing to keep in mind with a text input is that if you want to change its height, don't set the height property, instead use the font-size property, that way, not only will the height change but the size of the text typed in will match the size of the input:

HTML Code:

<input type="text" style="font-size:.75em;border:1px inset green;">

**Samsoske** · 03-16-2006, 11:30 PM

If you wanted to change the bgcolor atribute, you would just add bgcolor:#ff66yy; to <input type="text" style="font-size:.75em;border:1px inset green; bgcolor:#ff66yy;"> ???????????????????????

**mwinter** · 03-16-2006, 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by jscheuer1

HTML Code:

<input type="text" style="font-size:.75em;border:1px inset green;">

Don't use em lengths for font-size declarations. IE can end up computing the value completely incorrectly. Use percentages:

HTML Code:

<input ... style="font-size: 75%;">

That said, I'd like to note two things:

A reduction to 75% is probably too small. If it's 75% of the default font size, then it should definitely be larger: at least 85%, but preferably larger still.
Don't use in-line style declarations (though I realise in posts like these, it's much more convenient).

Originally Posted by Samsoske

If you wanted to change the bgcolor atribute, you would just add bgcolor:#ff66yy; [...]

No. The property name is background-color. Note that a background colour should be paired with a foreground colour declarations (the color property).

Mike