[thelist] Looking for advice on browser copy/paste bugs encountered on my site

[Ellen Key Harris-Braun]

I have been having a strange problem with one of my Web sites and 
have finally gathered enough data to ask for your help on it.  Some 
users of the site (4 out of 500 or so) cannot paste their text into a 
text box (though they can type directly into it); others can't copy 
text displayed on our site into their word processor or into our text 
boxes.

We run an online writing workshop where submitting your work via a 
textbox and reviewing others' work (displayed on the site) by copying 
bits of it into a text box and commenting on it are both very 
important.  So despite the small number of users reporting this bug, 
we really want to get it solved.

Users were using these platforms/browsers:

1) PC, "recent version" of Netscape--can't paste into text box 
(copies from word processor but doesn't paste in)

2) PC, IE 5.0--can't paste into text box (copies from word processor 
but doesn't paste in), can't copy from text displayed on site 
(doesn't get copied)
Upgrade to IE 5.5 solved all problems for this user.

3) PC IE 5.0--can't paste into text box (copies from word processor 
but doesn't paste in), can't copy from text displayed on site 
(doesn't get copied)

4) not sure yet about platform/browser--can't paste into text box but 
copy and paste work fine within word processor and on other sites

Everyone can _type_ into the text boxes, just not paste.  No one has 
reported trouble copying/pasting within their other word processor.

So we have two (possibly related) browser/code problems:

--inability to copy text from our site (PC IE 5.0 but not Mac IE 5.0 
or PC IE 5.5)

--inability to paste text into text box (PC N 4.?, PC IE 5.0 but not 
Mac IE 5.0 or PC IE 5.5)

I read recently about <TD ALIGN=LEFT> making it impossible to select 
text in a table cell via Netscape 4.x browsers...but our target text 
is not in a table, and these are complaints from IE users, mostly. 
And I have yet to find anything helpful about not being able to paste 
into a text box.  (Not short text, not long text.)

My only thought is that maybe the WRAP=VIRTUAL attribute to the text 
boxes is a problem.  Does anyone know if the WRAP attributes cause 
trouble like this in some (PC, mainly IE) browser versions?

And of course I'm open to other suggestions, leads, suspicions, and 
(esp.) quick fixes.

I've set up a copy of the form in question (which you normally have 
to be a member to access) in case anyone wants to have a go at it. 
Please let me know what you find out (and which browser and platform 
you're using).  (You won't be able to submit the form, but you won't 
need to to test out the problem.)

http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/testform.html

Thanks for any help!

Ellen
sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com

-
Ellen Key Harris-Braun
Online business strategies
http://www.panix.com/~ekh
ekh at panix.com