Server Side vs Client Side (was: Re: [thelist] cursor positioning with PHP)
Michael Pemberton
evolt at mpember.net.au
Sat Feb 26 00:29:31 CST 2005
Bernardo Escalona wrote:
> Ok, I want to have the cursor automatically placed in the 'login'
> field of a form as soon as the page loads up.
-- snip --
> I was mostly looking for a way to do this directly from php. Any suggestions?
I apologise in advance if I am jumping to comclusions, but it appears
that you need to look at the difference between what is possible at the
server side and what can be done on the client side.
Languages like PHP, ASP, Coldfusion, etc are only able to interact with
items that are accessible to the server. These are normally things like
files and database connections.
If you want to interact with item that are on the clients end, such as
DHTML elements and CSS values, then it has to be done from within the
browser. This means that you may alter the code before it gets to the
client, but the execution will still be done locally.
In short, the only way that PHP will be needed is if you wanted to allow
for changing the name of the field to be selected.
eg.
<script>
<!--
function cursor_pos(){
document.login_form.<?= $fieldname; ?>.focus();
}
// -->
</script>
Hopefully this all makes sense and I haven't created more confusion :)
--
Michael Pemberton
evolt at mpember.net.au
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