Clear button in forms
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Honestly, what's the point of having the Clear button in web forms? If the user wants to start afresh, they just have to refresh the page. What's more, the Clear button is often very close to Submit - one misclick and all the data you've entered is gone. If you think this is bad, I just encountered an internal website (no, I'm not saying where I work! :)) where there's just a single textbox to enter a string to search for, and it has its own Clear and Search buttons. (Why? How difficult is it to clear a textbox manually?) But it gets worse.... I pasted my search string there and hit Enter. It does a postback (to clear a textbox? :suss: ) and returns to the same page. Huh? Try it again, same result :~ Type my text manually, hit Enter, same result :confused: Then it dawns on me - the default action is Clear :wtf: :doh: :mad:
I love go-o-o-o-ld!
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Honestly, what's the point of having the Clear button in web forms? If the user wants to start afresh, they just have to refresh the page. What's more, the Clear button is often very close to Submit - one misclick and all the data you've entered is gone. If you think this is bad, I just encountered an internal website (no, I'm not saying where I work! :)) where there's just a single textbox to enter a string to search for, and it has its own Clear and Search buttons. (Why? How difficult is it to clear a textbox manually?) But it gets worse.... I pasted my search string there and hit Enter. It does a postback (to clear a textbox? :suss: ) and returns to the same page. Huh? Try it again, same result :~ Type my text manually, hit Enter, same result :confused: Then it dawns on me - the default action is Clear :wtf: :doh: :mad:
I love go-o-o-o-ld!
...Pressed that one accidentally and your entered data was gone?
regards Torsten When I'm not working
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Honestly, what's the point of having the Clear button in web forms? If the user wants to start afresh, they just have to refresh the page. What's more, the Clear button is often very close to Submit - one misclick and all the data you've entered is gone. If you think this is bad, I just encountered an internal website (no, I'm not saying where I work! :)) where there's just a single textbox to enter a string to search for, and it has its own Clear and Search buttons. (Why? How difficult is it to clear a textbox manually?) But it gets worse.... I pasted my search string there and hit Enter. It does a postback (to clear a textbox? :suss: ) and returns to the same page. Huh? Try it again, same result :~ Type my text manually, hit Enter, same result :confused: Then it dawns on me - the default action is Clear :wtf: :doh: :mad:
I love go-o-o-o-ld!
Not saying every form wants or needs one, but on some forms there is a good case for having a 'clear' button. Some of the forms I designed persist a lot of information after a POST that updates something on the server. We use these forms to do 'batches' of related updates, and it's easier to just change a couple of fields rather than re-enter 5 or 6. (The redisplay typically clears a couple of fields but leaves the 'reference' stuff alone.) So the user follows a chain of updates, then uses the 'clear' button to go start a new chain. And yes, it's located well away from the 'submit' button. Cheers, Peter
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Honestly, what's the point of having the Clear button in web forms? If the user wants to start afresh, they just have to refresh the page. What's more, the Clear button is often very close to Submit - one misclick and all the data you've entered is gone. If you think this is bad, I just encountered an internal website (no, I'm not saying where I work! :)) where there's just a single textbox to enter a string to search for, and it has its own Clear and Search buttons. (Why? How difficult is it to clear a textbox manually?) But it gets worse.... I pasted my search string there and hit Enter. It does a postback (to clear a textbox? :suss: ) and returns to the same page. Huh? Try it again, same result :~ Type my text manually, hit Enter, same result :confused: Then it dawns on me - the default action is Clear :wtf: :doh: :mad:
I love go-o-o-o-ld!
Well, not to mention the browser auto-fill stuff. You may hit clear now, refresh the page, and find your previously POSTed info back into the form fields. But the default action as Clear? :omg: :wtf:
Full-fledged Java/.NET lover, full-fledged PHP hater. Full-fledged Google/Microsoft lover, full-fledged Apple hater. Full-fledged Skype lover, full-fledged YM hater.
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Honestly, what's the point of having the Clear button in web forms? If the user wants to start afresh, they just have to refresh the page. What's more, the Clear button is often very close to Submit - one misclick and all the data you've entered is gone. If you think this is bad, I just encountered an internal website (no, I'm not saying where I work! :)) where there's just a single textbox to enter a string to search for, and it has its own Clear and Search buttons. (Why? How difficult is it to clear a textbox manually?) But it gets worse.... I pasted my search string there and hit Enter. It does a postback (to clear a textbox? :suss: ) and returns to the same page. Huh? Try it again, same result :~ Type my text manually, hit Enter, same result :confused: Then it dawns on me - the default action is Clear :wtf: :doh: :mad:
I love go-o-o-o-ld!
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Honestly, what's the point of having the Clear button in web forms? If the user wants to start afresh, they just have to refresh the page. What's more, the Clear button is often very close to Submit - one misclick and all the data you've entered is gone. If you think this is bad, I just encountered an internal website (no, I'm not saying where I work! :)) where there's just a single textbox to enter a string to search for, and it has its own Clear and Search buttons. (Why? How difficult is it to clear a textbox manually?) But it gets worse.... I pasted my search string there and hit Enter. It does a postback (to clear a textbox? :suss: ) and returns to the same page. Huh? Try it again, same result :~ Type my text manually, hit Enter, same result :confused: Then it dawns on me - the default action is Clear :wtf: :doh: :mad:
I love go-o-o-o-ld!
What's stopping a programmer from intercepting a click on a 'clear button with an EventHandler, and putting up a dialog giving the user the choice to cancel, or go ahead and 'clear ? best, Bill
"If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer ?" Stephen Wright