sessions and forms

derksj

can someone tell me how i should use session with this form

<form method="POST" action="mutatiecontrole.php" >
<TABLE align=center>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Personeelsnummer:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT name=nieuwepersoneelsnummer> 
	</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Naam:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT name=nieuwenaam> 
	</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Titel:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT  name=nieuwetitel>
	</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Dienstverband:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT  name=nieuwedienstverband>
	</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Mobielnummer:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT  name=nieuwemobielnummer>
	</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Bedrijfsonderdeel:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT  name=nieuwebedrijfsonderdeel>
	</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
	<TD vAlign=top align=right>
		<P><b>Postadres:  </b></P>
	</TD>
	<TD>
		<INPUT  name=nieuwepostadres>
	</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY>
</TABLE>
  		<p><input type="submit" value="OK" name="submit">&nbsp<input type="reset" value="Wissen" name="reset"></p>
</form>

AstroTeg

Its good HTML coding practice to put quotes around:

<INPUT name=nieuwepersoneelsnummer>

to be:

<INPUT name="nieuwepersoneelsnummer">

Ok, so you want to use sessions. What do you want to do? What are you looking to store?

derksj

Hi
what i want is that a user hits the back button all te variables are still intact

AstroTeg

Ok, thats info that could have helped...

By clicking the back button in your browser (try this at home if you like), you'll notice the browser DOES NOT make a server request (unless you manage to persuade it to not cache the page). The browser realizes its been to the previous page already and digs it out of its cache. Now sometimes you get lucky and it pulls out your form data too. But othertimes it may forget to do that. Some browsers may not even consider putting in the form data.

The only alternative I can think of at this moment would be to use cookies and JavaScript. Before submitting the form (ideally in the onSubmit), have JavaScript create cookies for your form data (remember, a user can only have so many cookies so don't overload them with more then 20).

You'll need to add JavaScript code that runs when the form is loaded. It needs to check if the user has the JavaScript cookies you set and it needs to read them and then put the values into the form. Its not overly difficult to do, but does require a good chunk of JavaScript to make work. If you haven't played with JavaScript flavored cookies before, you'll want to read up on some JavaScrpt cookie tutorials before tackling this (I'm sure they're out there - check out http://www.irt.org and the JavaScript FAQ section and then cookies)

derksj

why not sessions

AstroTeg

When you click back, the browser usually doesn't ask the server for the web page again since its already cached. This means the browser does not trigger a page or script to be run. To make sessions work, you'd have to run a PHP script. But the browser doesn't trigger the PHP script to be run when you click back.

You can experiment with caching and you may be able to get it to trigger the page which then would allow you to use sessions. But I find browsers tend to be a little quircky when you click back.

Personally, I don't do anything for the user if they want to click back. Here's why:

Clicking back should (in my opinion) default to what the browser normally does. The user has grown familiar with this. If they click back and form is empty, it probably happens on other sites to. The user then doesn't mind this happening.

You should provide an out for your user instead of clicking back. If they are filling out a form and you validate it and there's an error, then reload the form with the form data AND the error message. Then the user can see they need to fill out the form again and the data will all be there (you can pull it out from the $POST or $GET variables).

You shouldn't be implementing a web design that requires users to use back as a navigation function. You should take it into account that it will happen, but you shouldn't have stuff that says, "click the back button to go to the previous page."