JavaScript Essentials For Dummies

Chapter 10

Dealing with Form Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

Coding text boxes

Programming checkboxes, radio buttons, and selection lists

Monitoring and triggering form events

Dealing with the form data

In this chapter, you learn how to “wire up” your HTML forms by plugging them into some JavaScript code. You explore various form-related objects and then get right to work coding text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, and selection lists. You also dive into the useful world of form events and even learn how to enhance your form controls with keyboard shortcuts. To top it all off, you go hog wild and learn how to store form data using the Web Storage API.

Coding Text Fields

Text-based fields are the most commonly used form elements, and most of them use the <input> tag. The input element has tons of attributes, but from a coding perspective, you’re generally interested in only four:

<input id="textId" type="textType" name="textName" value="textValue">

Here’s what the various parts are:

• textId: A unique identifier for the text field
• textType: The kind of text field you want to use in your ...