How to catch the 'tab' key in a textfield??

I need to figure when the 'tab' key has been selected inside a textfield.
The result of pressing the tab would be to create a new row of textfields.

Anyone, please advise...

 

Use the onkeydown event:

<input type="text" name="mytext" onkeydown="if(event.keyCode==9) {makeRow();}">

Code (markup):

 

Thanks again Durango, but i'm not sure on the syntax on writing methods in php?? Help please :S

 

lost,

The only way to catch a keypress in the browser is with client-side scripting, such as the onkeydown javascript event I used in the code example. That can be used to fire a javascript method to either create new form elements dynamically using javascript or to submit the form to PHP and redraw the form with added form elements.

 

Ok, so if i want to create the rows dynamically, i would have to use javascript method.
Now, do i write this javascript method within the php code?? whats the format? i'm so lost...

 

read the data from the textfield, then you have the following options:

-consider 4 or more spaces a tab
-read each word (tokenize the input somehow) and check to see whether a word equals to "\t" (if it works)

 

I had this problem just yesterday. I can tell you now:

<input type="text" name="mytext" onkeydown="if(event.keyCode==9) {makeRow();}">

Code (markup):

wont work, onkeydown won't catch the TAB (ascii 9) character. I found a solution that worked in IE but there doesn't appear to be a solution for mozilla/FF.

EDIT

Here's the IE solution, by the way: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Q_21280185.html

 

mnemtsas,

The article you posted shows using onkeydown. And I have tested onkeydown in IE, and it works.

 

lost: you first need to understand the difference between javascript and php. One is client side and one is server side.

In php you can catch a tab by looking for \t in double quotes, obviously the method you do this depends on the context of the situation.

 

I tested it too, and TAB tabs out of the field when using onkeydown to trap the tab.

 

If you try the following HTML and hit tab in the field, does it give you an alert of 9? It did for me on IE6.02

<input type="text" name="textbox" onkeydown="alert(event.keyCode);">

Code (markup):

 

It'll give you an alert, but if you try any of the usual methods (ie returning 0) to stop tabbing out it won't work. Don't ask me why. Very odd.

 

Ok, but I think for his purposes, just recognizing that the tab key was pressed and be able to call javascript based on that will work. He can either submit his form or add form elements dynamically if the event.keyCode equals 9 (tab). Doesn't really matter if the tab then moves on, his javascript code has already executed whatever he needed it to do.

 

You can cancel the tab by using the onkeypress event in Firefox.

onkeypress="doStuff();return false;"

Code (markup):

Presumably this is because the onkeypress event still fires even if you cancel the onkeydown event.

Mick