Javascript teething pains

To mix metaphores, I’ve jumped into the deep end here, with AJAX, before I’ve ever done much at all with Javascript. Now, I’m trying to do a simple, obvious, rank-beginner thing and it just doesn’t work! Here’s the very simple code:



It’s called on the onClick event of a button element. The form has the same ID and name values. The input value checks work perfectly, but the submit just doesn’t work! I fiddle with it, and get one of two errors: document.myForm has no properties, or: document.the SpecificFormName.submit is not a function. I’ve tried it as document.forms.theForm... document.forms.theSpecificFormName... every permutation I can think of, and it’ either the "no properties" or "not a function" error.

I’ve been three days reading I-don’t-know-how-many tutorials and sample scripts, and they all say the same thing, and at least I THINK I’m doing the same thing. Any ideas

If you could, attach the page as a zip file and I’ll be glad to look at it. I’ve been getting back into doing some javascript as well so...it’ll be a learning experience for me as well.

L8R!

Jeff

Quote from: sottwell at Jun 25, 2005, 01:21 AM

To mix metaphores, I’ve jumped into the deep end here, with AJAX, before I’ve ever done much at all with Javascript. Now, I’m trying to do a simple, obvious, rank-beginner thing and it just doesn’t work! Here’s the very simple code:

function checkSubmit(theForm) {
    var myForm = document.getElementById(theForm);
    if(myForm.sbName.value == '') {
        alert('Need to enter a name!');
        return false;
    } else if(myForm.sbMessage.value == '') {
        alert('Need to enter a message!');
        return false;
    } else {
        document.myForm.submit();
    }
}

It’s called on the onClick event of a button element. The form has the same ID and name values. The input value checks work perfectly, but the submit just doesn’t work! I fiddle with it, and get one of two errors: document.myForm has no properties, or: document.the SpecificFormName.submit is not a function. I’ve tried it as document.forms.theForm... document.forms.theSpecificFormName... every permutation I can think of, and it’ either the "no properties" or "not a function" error.

I’ve been three days reading I-don’t-know-how-many tutorials and sample scripts, and they all say the same thing, and at least I THINK I’m doing the same thing. Any ideas

Old post, but i have the same problem in a modx context...

the document.getElementById function didn’t seems to work...

I have always a document.myForm has no properties

Same thing if i try to acces it by document.all.myForm

Although this is a real cope out, one thing you might try is utilizing the mootools library (/manager/media/script/mootools/mootools.js). It’ll allow you to do things that are much similar to what Prototype allows you to do. For instance, using the document.getElementById function might look something like this:



But with mootools we can assign an element with a ID using a much simpler method:



There’s also a getValue method that comes in handy for getting the value of a textarea, select or input element. Let’s say you have a text box with an ID of ’textboxExample’ then you could assign the value of it to a variable like this:



All in all, mootools provides some excellent ways of writing custom code that is leaner, cleaner and simply gets the job done. Check it out!

More information about the properties of the Elements.js functions in mootools can be found in the mootools docs (http://docs.mootools.net/files/Native/Element-js.html). There’s also a great tutorial site (http://clientside.cnet.com/wiki/mootorial/) for mootools as well.

Jeff