Keep Form Content on Page Refresh

partypete

Hello,

I have a page that meta-refreshes every x minutes to keep dynamic content up to date. But on that same page I have a small form for sending an e-mail message. But unfortunately if someone is in the middle of writing a message when the page refreshes, the form is cleared and the message lost.

I know I could put the form on a different page, BUT.... is there a way to prevent a form from being cleared when the page is refreshed??

Thanks

colbec

Have you considered using <input type='hidden'... to retain the contents of important vars and catching them in the $_POST array?

partypete

Hey colbec,

Unfortunately it's a simple e-mail form. Just a "Message" field and a "Name" field, neither of which can be hidden of course.

colbec

Just in case there is a misunderstanding here, the suggestion was to have the <input type='hidden' ...> stuff in addition to the <input type='text'...> items. The latter remain visible so that user has a place to input, the former just post back whatever they are told to, in this case the contents of the visible inputs.

partypete

Sorry, definately confused 😕

This is my full form:

<form action="/cgi-bin/formmail.pl" method="POST" name="form1">
<input type="hidden" name="recipient" value="myname@mydomain.com">
<input type=hidden name="subject" value="Intranet submission">
<input name="redirect" type="hidden" id="redirect" value="http://www.mydomain.com/directory/home.php">
<textarea name="comments" cols="30" rows="4" wrap="virtual" class="textArea4lines" tabindex="3" value="Your message...">Your message...</textarea>
<input name="realname" type="text" class="textboxSmall" tabindex="1" value="Your Name...">
<input name="submit" type="submit" tabindex="4" value="Send!"></form>

As you can see there are a couple hidden fields who's values are hardcoded into the page.

The fields "comments" and "realname" are the fields getting erased when the page refreshes and the person loses what they've typed.

I don't know how more hidden fields can prevent "comments" and "realname" from losing their values. Keep in mind that when the page refreshes, the form doesn't get a chance to send, so I don't know how I'd get the variables from $_Post.

Could you explain just a little bit further...?:rolleyes:

colbec

Jeez yes you are right, sorry about that. All I can think is that it might be possible to have more control over when the page is refreshed - instead of the meta refresh can you have a timer tick down and do it inside the php?

colbec

From a quick bit of reading looks like the answer might be in client side (javascript?) controlled refresh, rather than meta?