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Submit The Form When The User Presses Enter

Different browsers have different default behaviors about what to do when the user hits enter in a form. MSIE almost always submits the form, while Netscape will often just beep at you. Although it's usually best to leave the default browser behavior as it is, for some forms people just naturally tend to hit "enter" when they are ready. This is particularly true for login forms. With a little JavaScript we can set the form to submit on enter.

First, copy this script exactly as-is into the <HEAD> section of your document:

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
<!--
function submitenter(myfield,e)
{
var keycode;
if (window.event) keycode = window.event.keyCode;
else if (e) keycode = e.which;
else return true;

if (keycode == 13)
   {
   myfield.form.submit();
   return false;
   }
else
   return true;
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>

For each field which should submit the form when they hit enter add an onKeyPress attribute like this:

<FORM ACTION="../cgi-bin/mycgi.pl">
name:     <INPUT NAME=realname SIZE=15><BR>
password: <INPUT NAME=password TYPE=PASSWORD SIZE=10
           onKeyPress="return submitenter(this,event)"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Log In">
</FORM>

Add the attribute like it is in the example. No modification is needed. This gives us this form:

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Copyright 1997-2002 Idocs Inc. Content in this guide is offered freely to the public under the terms of the Open Content License and the Open Publication License. Contents may be redistributed or republished freely under these terms so long as credit to the original creator and contributors is maintained. About the author