Optional PHP code if javascript not enabled

slindstr

So I've got a page that has a bunch of <select></select> menus on it. When one select menu has an option selected, it loads the contents of another select menu.

It's way less annoying (to me at least) if I use javascript to load the options than if I was to have PHP refresh the page each time, but of course not everyone has javascript enabled. So here's my thought:

On the link to get to that page I would do something like this:

<a href="page2.php" onClick="this.href=page2.php?js=true">Page 2</a>

and then use $_GET['js'] to either include the javascript or not.

Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks
Steve

bradgrafelman

Not AFAIK. I did something similar in a user management system to determine whether JS was enabled.

slindstr

It would be nice if there was some concrete way to know if the user has javascript enabled or not - maybe in PHP 6... 🙂

halojoy

hi.
You have to use Java to detect if javascript is enabled
but I think, this data would be possible to transfer to PHP

like this:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- The JavaScript Source!! http://javascript.internet.com -->
document.write("<center><table border=1><tr><td>");
document.write("Java enabled: <b>");

if (navigator.javaEnabled()) document.write("sure is!");
else document.write("not today")

document.write("</b></td></tr></table></center>");
</SCRIPT>

http://javascript.internet.com/user-details/browser-info.html

🙂

bradgrafelman

slindstr wrote:
It would be nice if there was some concrete way to know if the user has javascript enabled or not - maybe in PHP 6...

Well, PHP is a server-side language, so really it has no clue what a "browser" is, or what "Javascript" even is. It knows what PHP is, and how to output data across a stream. (Okay so it can do other things, but not really in the sense of client-server interaction).

slindstr

Touché

Drakla

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
document.write('I am the javascript, how do you do');
</script>

<noscript>
Grrrrrrrrr, you don't have javascript on
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;URL=http://google.com" />
</noscript>

MarkR

halojoy wrote:
hi.
You have to use Java to detect if javascript is enabled

No you don't. This is totally false.

Java and Javascript are totally separate and you shouldn't need one to determine anything about the other.

You could simply put a hidden field in the form which is set by Javascript (e.g. in onsubmit event) - if it contains its default value, you will know Javascript is disabled.

Mark

bradgrafelman

If you don't want to use a form, you could use similar logic on a link before they get to this page at all:

<a href="myPage.php?js=no" onclick="window.location = 'myPage.php?js=yes'; return false;">Click here</a>

On myPage.php, you would simply check for the value of $_GET['js'] to determine if JS is installed/enabled.