[skalie]

// Edit: Javascript issue solved



I'm putting together a guestbook using php and mysql, a simple affair, just a brush up exercise really.

Everything was working fine (under IE) until I opened the input form in Chimera.

The textarea which should be 100 cols wide and residing in a table with a width of 80%, stretches wider than the open window.

Also the simple Javascript form validation doesn't appear to work.

I have JavaScript enabled for the Chimera browser, and viewing the source of other input forms (like this one) I can't see any difference in the script.

So much for trying to keep things simple in the interests of cross-platform compatability.

Here's the script that won't work in Chimera (but does in IE)...

function checkFields() {
if (guestinput.name.value==""){
alert("Please enter a message");
return false;
}else{
return true;
}
}

....the form tag has.....

onSubmit="return checkFields(this)"

.....the message input part has........

name = "message"

.....and if anyone can tell me why a textarea won't limit itself to 100 cols or the table width of 80% in Chimera I would be most gratefull.

(Navigator version 0.6 latest build 20/12, Mac OS X version 10.1)

[skalie]

Changing the function definition from...

function checkFields()

...to....

function checkFields(guestinput)

....made the script work in Chimera as well, not sure why, the use of names in functions still confuses me.



Now it's just the input textarea size issue to sort out........

......what is confusing me is that when I view the "post reply" textarea on a forum, Chimera makes the textarea thinner than IE, making me think that the cols are thinner.

When I try and duplicate that with html, Chimera makes the fields wider than those of IE.

[Mulattabianca]

about all the sites with the input fields look different in chimera. as long as they work.. if the result is still as you want it, i guess it's not the most essential how wide is it while you compile a message in it...

[ChrisB]

The one thing that I have learn over the years is that the rendering engines of IE and Mozilla getting similar, but are still different. The place you can still see this is in form rendering - especially when it comes to text fields. I'm not sure that there will ever be a way to get them both to render text fields exactly the same. I agree, as long as they work, that's all that matters.

[skalie]

Quite right Mulattabianca and ChrisB, as long as the forms work and all that.

Before encountering these problems I had just spent a good while sorting out troubles with form sizes and table sizes when accessing databases, had got everything running smoothly and on my first capatability test it looked like everything was back to square one.

Still live and learn........

Now all I need is the inspiration to repair the old PC so I can test my project on the windows platform.