newUser: how do I prevent posting spaces in text field

[duffman]

Hi there, I did a search but could find anything I could really grasp. I am VERY new to javascript, and just finished reading my first book on it- so please be patient if I seem ignorant (I am).

I have been making a shoutbox as a personal challenge for a CMS, and have managed to make it work fine except users can post an 'empty' post by hitting the spacebar.

Here is the code I am currently using in the head of the template:

<script type="text/javascript">
   function formCheck(el){
  if(el.value == ''){
     alert('Please Enter Something to Post!');
        el.focus();
           return false;
      } else {
            return true;
            }
      }
</script>

and this is in the body of the template:

<form method="post"  action="#xarModUrl('shouter', 'admin', 'create')#" onsubmit="return formCheck(document.getElementById('shout'));">
		<p><input style="font-size:10px;" type="text" id="shout" name="shout" size="20" /></p>
		<p><input type="hidden" name="oldurl" value="#$oldurl#" /></p>
		<p><input  style="margin-top: 5px; font-size: 10px;" type="submit" name="submit" value="#$shoutbutton#" /></p>
	</form>

Now, I must stress that I pretty much understand this, but I had someone help me out a bit a while ago.

Anyways, all works well if someone enters text-- it posts, and if someone just hits enter the alert window pops up. However, if someone hits the spacebar, an 'empty' post is submitted.

I appreciate any help you may offer. Again, my apologies if this is a redundant post.


Thanks

[BeachSide]

A regular expression would work good there. One that checked to make sure that at the very least there was the characters a-z and A-Z as well as 1-0 this would weed out the empty posts.

::Edit:: It just occured to me that you probably won't know how to implement a regex. No problem here is a real basic one to help you get started...

http://www.jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ4_16

Remember that if a user has JavaScript turned off they will still be able to make a blank post. Therefore I suggest you also implement something to check the user input into your server side script!