echo a form property

[LordRogaine]

I have a form that users to my site will fill out. It has a drop down menu, scroll bar and check boxes. If they fill out a field incorrectly they will get an error message with the form for them to correct. When the user goes to correct the form I want it to still contain the values that were correct so they don't have to fill the whole thing out again. When I do this with the drop down menu I have no problem. I use this as one of the options-

<option><? echo "$state"; ?></option>

I would have thought this would work the same with a scroll bar menu but it doesn't. I'm totally confused how to do this with check boxes so that the boxes stay checked. Any ideas?

[cgraz]

When you tell them they had an error, do you use something like <a href="form.php">Go back to form</a>????

If you do that, the form will be reset. You could juse javascript to go back to the form, and everything they filled out (unless it was a password) would still be set

<a href="javascript:history.back()">Go back to form</a>

But for learning experience, if you want a checkbox to stay check when they go back, you set it to be checked.

so what you'd do, run an if statement to see if that checkbox had a value, if it did, set it to checked

if ($name) {
     echo "<input type=checkbox name=name checked>\n";
} else {
     echo "<input type=checkbox name=name>\n";
}

yeah, I know you'd never have a checkbox for someone to select whether they had a name or not, but it's just an example. 😉

Cgraz

[LordRogaine]

Hey there cgraz. Thanks for your help with my other problem. I really shouldn't have said error. That was poor wording on my part. What I should have said was that I have a from, if a person leaves any of the fields blank I want the form to come up again with messages telling them what they left out and what they did fill out still remains intact. I'm able to do this with the drop down menu but not the scroll bars or check boxes. Where exactly should I place this script that you gave me? I'm not sure exactly where this would go. Thanks for the help.

if ($name) {
echo "<input type=checkbox name=name checked>\n";
} else {
echo "<input type=checkbox name=name>\n";
}

[cgraz]

Are you using the same page to process the results as displays the form, or is your form and process page two seperate files? If it's two seperate fields, ddi you try the javascript link I gave you? If they go back to the form using that, all the fields will be as they left them.

Since you don't know where to place what I gave you, post some of your code and it will be easier to help you. There are different methods to do this and which one to use all depends on how you are handling the script.

Cgraz

[LordRogaine]

I'm using two seperate pages. One that has the form and the other that process the script but will bring up the form again if need be. I'd rather not use the java link to go ack to the previous page. I'm trying to make it so the user can see the from and what was missed at the same time.

Here's an example of the check box form that I am using. Thanks again.

<form method="POST" action="http://mysite.com/page.php">
<p><input type="checkbox" name="fruit[]" value="apples">APPLES&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<input type="checkbox" name="fruit[]" value="oranges">ORANGES</p>
<p><input type="checkbox" name="fruit[]" value="pears">PEARS&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<input type="checkbox" name="fruit[]" value="peaches">PEACHES</p>
<p><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit"><input type="reset" value="Reset" name="reset"></p>
</form>