Advice on a signup page...

TheStalker

Hi all,

Im after a bit of advice about a sign up page. Not so much code but just the best way to get around a problem i have.

ok,

I have a normal form that the user enters email address, password ect etc into then the form is submited to another page which inserts the data inot the datbase. Before the insert takes place there are some checks e.g if the password is less then 8 characters then it takes the user back to the sign up page and tells the user what is wrong.

Now my problem is that when a user enters something wrong and they are taken back to the sign up page. The rest of the values that the user has filled out in the text / drop down boxes is gone. Is there a way to get round this so all the values are still filled in (not password) so the user doesnt have to start filling in the form over again?????

My first thought was to put all the values into thier own session var, would this work and how?

any help would be great 🙂

dagon

sessions are one option, i would process the form on the very same php page, then you can simply repopulate the form values with that which was posted

basically:

TheStalker

thanks this is a good idea, so would i do the insert into the database etc on the same as well? how would this effect it ? would i not get an error witht eh first laod as there would be nothing to insert? and what about having page saying "thank you for signing up blah blah blaah" ??

thanks for your reply 🙂

dagon

you can have a million page website useing one php page, you just conditionally process. so in your case you have an if form posted block that process the form

if($_POST[submit]==submit){

process form
}else{
show form
}

TheStalker

thanks for the advice. Just to add to matters lol i want to have a drop down list of countries that when clicked updates another drop down list with states or towns, which needs to reload the form. I think this is going to be a problem as im going to lose the values still. This is starting to look hard :S

dagon

you could use js to populate the town based on country pick

TheStalker

ive thought about that would that be a good idea, as this would be a largae amount of info, States for the U.S, citys for the UK etc etc.......... I think you might be right tho. iut might be the only way round it.

thanks for all the replys btw

ive been looking at this example here http://www.plus2net.com/php_tutorial/php_drop_down_list.php

dagon

use an ajax request to load the right city file, so no more data than doing it with php, and it has that nice not refreshing the page feel.

TheStalker

cool, never done any thing with AJAX before? any advice? i will go and do some reading on it now see if i can work out how its done. Will it still use the database?

dagon

all my js is via jquery this may help:http://www.bitrepository.com/dynamic-dependant-dropdown-list-us-states-counties.html