using the enter key

**denysia** · 01-26-2004 01:57 PM

I am real new at this.

I am developing a php application with a mysql db. I would like the user to be able to hit the "enter" key to tab through fields, instead of having to use tab.

How do I do this.

I am running it on a Linux server using apache

**fredmv** · 01-26-2004 02:37 PM

Welcome to the forums.

I don't see why you put this in the feedback section, but I'll attempt to help anyway.

My question to would be this: why? It just doesn't really make much sense as to why you'd want to do such a thing. The enter key already has a meaning when inside a form element and that is to submit the form. On the same note, the tab key already has a meaning that most users are aware of: to navigate through the form elements.

Also note, by doing this, users in which have browsers that don't support JavaScript or have JavaScript currently disabled will accidentaly submit the form if they try using the enter key to tab to the next or previous element in the form.

**denysia** · 01-26-2004 02:42 PM

There are a lot of websites that allow the user to press enter to negotiate to the next field. And I want to do it to make it easier for the user. There are still alot that can't remember the tab key

**fredmv** · 01-26-2004 02:57 PM

I don't see how that would make it easier, and there are — for sure — many more sites that have no extra scripting involved as opposed to the sites that let the user use the enter key (e.g., this one, etc.). I just don't see any benefits of using it. It's not very good for usability because it uses a non-standard key for achieving a task that most users are already familar with that users another key to do it, not to mention people will become frusturated after the form submits when they didn't actually want it to (i.e., in the case of a user that has JavaScript support off or the browser simply doesn't support JavaScript).

**olaf** · 02-16-2004 12:31 PM

Hallo, (sorry for using the feedback-forum)

Today i searched the web to control the enter-button. In a lot of my forms the enter button submit's the form like excepted. Now i have created a form dynamicly with php it doesn't work.

here is the code, any idea?

PHP Code:




    <html>

    <head>

    <title>nummerbord detail</title>

    <link href="../../berg.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

    </head>

    <body topmargin="50" leftmargin="25">

    <form action="" method="post" name="check">

      <table border="0">

          <tr>

          <td class="bodySmallBoldBlue" height="50" colspan="2">Geef hier de unieke serienummer op:</td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

          <td class="bodySmallRight"><input type="text" name="lucky_number" size="10" maxlength="11"></td>

          <td><input type="Submit" name="submit" value="Check"></td>

          </tr>

      </table>

    </form>

    </body>

    </html>

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