read only text field?

Hi there. Is it possible to allow a user to only delete what is in a text field and not enter items into it??

Do you mean delete ALL the content of the field, or just part of it?

If the former you could do something like

input type = "text" name = "field1" value = "Something" onclick="scrub(this)"

function scrub(which) {
which.value = "";
}

You could prevent the content being added to by checking the length and if greater than the original (or revised) length alert a message and return false.

<SCRIPT type = "Text/Javascript">
var maxlen = 9 // length of original text e.g. 'Something'
function checklen (which) {
newlen = which.value.length;
if newlen > maxlen {
alert ("You may only delete text from this field, not add more text to it")
return false;
}
else {maxlen = newlen} // maxlen can reduce but not increase.
}
</SCRIPT>

Note that this does not prevent the user from replacing the original text with some other text of equal length.

Hi Nikko.. maybe you want something like this :


<script>
function KeyDownHandler(event)
{
if ((event.keyCode == 8) || (event.keyCode == 46))
return true;
else
return false;
}
</script>
<input value="testtadsasdasdext" type="text" onkeypress="return KeyDownHandler(event);">


But it's not so good how it looks, because if javascript is disabled in browser you have a problem :)

You can still paste to the text field with thisif ((event.keyCode == 8) || (event.keyCode == 46))

You can still paste to the text field with thisif ((event.keyCode == 8) || (event.keyCode == 46))

You can still disable javascript in the browser

You can still disable javascript in the browser

Well, that applies to any script. In that case all bets are off. Can be overcome with <NOSCRIPT> tags to redirect to another page.

Why (event.keyCode == 46)? ASCII 46 is a period.

Why (event.keyCode == 46)? ASCII 46 is a period.

In Firefox is 46 delete key, it seems in IE is 46 a period