Comments on: Place Holding Text In Form Inputs

By: David Anderson

David Anderson — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:25:45 +0000

err… silly html error. like this:

if (strlen(trim($formdata)) < 1) then user left the field empty

By: David Anderson

David Anderson — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:24:16 +0000

If you can edit the code that processes the submitted form data, all you need is something along these lines:
if(strlen(trim($formdata))

By: Administrator

Administrator — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:15:49 +0000

Carry out a specific check on the required input. If the input equals null or your default text, display an error message to the user and direct them back to the form again.

I tend to use something like:

/* Check that a required input has been submitted $text = the user's input $default = your placeholding text $msg = the error message you want displayed to the user

Call the function using:

list($flag, $display) = checkField($text, "Please enter your comments", "You left the Comments field blank!"); if($flag==false) echo $display;

function checkField($text,$default,$msg) { $result = array(); // Has something been submitted? if(($text=="") | ($text == $default)) { $result[0]=false; $result[1]=”".$msg.”"; return $result; } else { $result[0] = true; return $result; } }

By: Lisa Alaxanian

Lisa Alaxanian — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:45:12 +0000

I am trying to create a form where textareas are ‘required’ by the user but if I include defaulted text within the box (W3C Priority 3 accessibility guideline) or as noted by Rich Pedley, include a white space, the ‘required’ part will no longer work, which means the user can just select ’submit’ and I won’t get the information I need from them.

Any suggestions?

Thanks - Lisa