Google search box only works 50% of the time - javascript

I'm writing a new tab extension for Firefox, and I'd like to have a box that you can type in and have it search Google. I really don't want to use a custom Google search, just because I feel like it's inconsistent and seems cheap.
All that it's supposed to do is add your query to the end of the google URL (in the correct formatting, of course) and redirect you to that page. I have it working sometimes, but not all of the time.
Here's the code I have:
JS:
var textstring;
//Gets the text from the form
function getQ() {
textstring = document.forms['Search'].elements[0].value;
}
//Does a Google Search
function googleSearch() {
window.location ="http://www.google.com/search?q="+textstring;
}
//main function to run everything
function main() {
getQ();
googleSearch();
}
HTML:
<form name="Search" >
<div id="test1">
<input type="text" name="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="" />
</div>
<div id="test2">
<input type="button" value="Google Search" onclick="main();" />
</div>
</form>
Not sure why that last /form isn't showing up, but that's in there just so you guys know.
It works like 25% of the time. I can't figure out what's wrong with it. Could it just be that I'm testing it locally? I've been testing it in Firefox, but it seems to have the same issue in IE or Chrome, as well.

Why don't you just submit to google (and avoid all the javascript) ?
<form name="Search" method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search" >
and use a normal submit button like
<input type="submit" value="Google Search" />
Since you have named the input element q and the method of the form is get it will create the correct url.
example: http://jsfiddle.net/gaby/gxun9/

Related

How to use Google Autocomplete in HTML?

I am a person who does not know javascript. For now. I made a small homepage design with PHP. There is a textbox and it searches Google. However, I couldn't find how to add autocomplete to it.
My homepage.php's HTML result:
<form action="https://www.google.com/search" method="GET" role="search"><center>
Search Web:<br>
<input id="meow" class="FormControl" maxlength="2048" name="q" type="text" autocomplete="off" autofocus="""><br>
<button type="submit" class="Button Button--primary">Google Search</button>
<br><br>This page will direct you to the Google search engine.
I saw on the internet there is a JSON file that does this but I have no idea how to use it.
http://google.com/complete/search?client=chrome&q=never+gonna+g

Passing var url using window location

trying to open search results in window (enter and click) it looks like the code is doing what I want it to do except accessing the actual search url any help is greatly appreciated.
the site is also on dev so you can see what I mean if you enter a search term.
http://staging.asla.org/2014awards/index.html
Code:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('form[role="search"]').submit(function() {
var url = "http://asla.org/awardssearch.html";
url += "?s=" + $('#GoogleCSE').val();
window.location = url;
});
});
</script>
<form class="navbar-form navbar-right" role="search">
<div class="search">
<input id="GoogleCSE" type="text" onblur="if(this.value=='')this.value=this.defaultValue;" onfocus="if(this.value==this.defaultValue)this.value='';" value="Search All Awards" name="Search All Awards" />
<input id="submit" type="submit" value="Search" />
</div>
</form>
Setting the location doesn't work beacuse the browser has already started to post the form. The browser will go to the page specified in the action attribute in the form, and as you don't have one, it will use the current page.
Use the preventDefault method to stop the posting of the form:
$('form[role="search"]').submit(function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
...
The issue caused is because of the on focus and onblir event where you are trying to show a placeholder text,
Change your input text to
<input id="GoogleCSE" type="text" placeholder="Search All Awards"/>
It should work.

javascript only executes once

I'm writing a cms page for my site. part of it is writing a preview component for my blog. I have a form, and a preview button, that activates a Javascript, which places the html typed in the text-area in a div element to test it. Everything works fine but the problem is that it only works once for each pageload. So I can't test something, add some code and retest it. Any ideas how to make multiple testing possible ?
Code Form:
<form>
<textarea rows="30"cols="30" name="blogpost" style="width:500px;resize:none;" autofocus placeholder="Enter your new blogpost here!"></textarea>
</br>
<input type = "submit" value="post">
<input type = "button" id="testknop" value="previeuw" onclick="previeuwpost(this.form, this.form.blogpost);">
<input type="reset" />
</form>
Javascript Code:
function previeuwpost(form, text){
$("#previeuwbox").replaceWith(text.value);
}
Thanks a lot folks
replaceWith means replaced.
Therefore, after you click, the $("#previeuwbox") is gone.
Please use :
$("#previeuwbox").html(text.value);

Trigger autocomplete without submitting a form

I am writing a very simple web app with three text inputs. The inputs are used to generate a result, but all the work is done in Javascript, so there is no need to submit a form. I'm trying to find a way to get the browser to store input values for autocomplete as it would if they were in a form that was submitted.
I have tried giving the inputs autocomplete="on" manually, but without a form to submit, the browser has no way of knowing when it should store the values, so this has no effect.
I have also tried wrapping the inputs in a form that has onSubmit="return false;", but preventing the form from actually submitting appears to also prevent the browser from storing its inputs' values.
It is of course possible to manually use localStorage or a cookie to persist inputs and then generate autocomplete hints from those, but I'm hoping to find a solution that taps into native browser behavior instead of duplicating it by hand.
Tested with Chrome, IE and Firefox:
<iframe id="remember" name="remember" class="hidden" src="/content/blank"></iframe>
<form target="remember" method="post" action="/content/blank">
<fieldset>
<label for="username">Username</label>
<input type="text" name="username" id="username" value="">
<label for="password">Password</label>
<input type="password" name="password" id="password" value="">
</fieldset>
<button type="submit" class="hidden"></button>
</form>
In your Javascript trigger the submit, e.g. $("form").submit(); $("#submit_button").click() (updated from comments)
You need to return an empty page at /content/blank for get & post (about:blank didn't work for me but YMMV).
We know that the browser saves its information only when the form is submitted, which means that we can't cancel it with return false or e.preventDefault()
What we can do is make it submit the data to nowhere without reloading a page. We can do that with an iframe
<iframe name="💾" style="display:none" src="about:blank"></iframe>
<form target="💾" action="about:blank">
<input name="user">
<input name="password" type="password">
<input value="Login" type="submit">
</form>
Demo on JSfiddle (tested in IE9, Firefox, Chrome)
Pros over the currently accepted answer:
shorter code;
no jQuery;
no server-side page loaded;
no additional javascript;
no additional classes necessary.
There is no additional javascript. You normally attach an handler to the submit event of the form to send the XHR and don't cancel it.
Javascript example
// for modern browsers with window.fetch
document.forms[0].addEventListener('submit', function (event) {
fetch('login.php', {
method: 'post',
body: new FormData(event.target))
}).then(r => r.text()).then(() => { /* login completed */ })
// no return false!!
});
No-javascript support
Ideally, you should let the form work without javascript too, so remove the target and set the action to a page that will receive your form data.
<form action="login.php">
And then simply add it via javascript when you add the submit event:
formElement.target = '💾';
formElement.action = 'about:blank';
I haven't tested this, but it might work if you submit the form to a hidden iframe (so that the form is actually submitted but the current page is not reloaded).
<iframe name="my_iframe" src="about:blank"></iframe>
<form target="my_iframe" action="about:blank" method="get">...</form>
---WITHOUT IFRAME---
Instead of using iframe, you can use action="javascript:void(0)", this way it doesn't go to another page and autocomplete will store the values.
<form action="javascript:void(0)">
<input type="text" name="firstName" />
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
Maybe you can use this Twitter Typeahead...is a very complete implementation of a autocomplete, with local and remote prefetch, and this make use of localStorage to persist results and also it show a hint in the input element...the code is easy to understand and if you don't want to use the complete jquery plugin, I think you can take a look of the code to see how to achieve what you want...
You can use jQuery to persist autocomplete data in the localstorage when focusout and when focusin it autocompletes to the value persisted.
i.e.
$(function(){
$('#txtElement').on('focusout',function(){
$(this).data('fldName',$(this).val());
}
$('#txtElement').on('focusin',function(){
$(this).val($(this).data('fldName'));
}
}
You can also bind persistence logic on other events also depending on the your application requirement.
For those who would rather not change their existing form functionality, you can use a second form to receive copies of all the form values and then submit to a blank page before your main form submits. Here is a fully testable HTML document using JQuery Mobile demonstrating the solution.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile.structure-1.4.5.min.css" />
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile-1.4.5.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<form method="post">
<input type="text" name="email" />
<input type="submit" value="GO" onclick="save_autofill(this);" />
</form>
<script>
function save_autofill(o) {
$(':input[name]', $('#hidden_form')).val(function () {
return $(':input[name=' + this.name + ']', $(o.form)).val();
});
$('#hidden_form').find("input[type=submit]").click();
}
</script>
<iframe name="hidden_iframe" style="display:none"></iframe>
<form target="hidden_iframe" id="hidden_form" action="about:blank" style="display:none">
<input type="text" name="email" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
The save_autofill function just needs to be called on your main form submit button. If you have a scripted function that submits your form, place that call after the save_autofill call. You must have a named textbox in your hidden_form for each one in your main form.
If your site uses SSL, then you must change the URL for about:blank with https://about:blank.
From what i searched.. it seems you need to identify the names. Some standard names like 'name', 'email', 'phone', 'address' are automatically saved in most browser.
Well, the problem is, browsers handle these names differenetly. For example, here is chrome's regex:
first name: "first.*name|initials|fname|first$"
email: "e.?mail"
address (line 1): "address.*line|address1|addr1|street"
zipcode: "zip|postal|post.*code|pcode|^1z$"
But chrome also uses autocomplete, so you can customize the name and put an autocomplete type, but i believe this is not for custom fields..
Here is chrome's standard
And it's another thing in IE, Opera, and Mozilla. For now, you can try the iframe solution there, so you can submit it. (Maybe it's something semi-standard)
Well, that's all i can help.
Make sure you're submitting the form via POST. If you're submitting via ajax, do <form autocomplete="on" method="post">, omitting the action attribute.
you can use "." in both iframe src and form action.
<iframe id="remember" name="remember" style="display:none;" src="."></iframe>
<form target="remember" method="post" action=".">
<input type="text" id="path" size='110'>
<button type="submit" onclick="doyouthing();">your button</button>
</form>

Javascript acting funny in Internet Explorer

I have a website where I want people to be able to type something in a text box and get sent to that directory based on what they entered.
Say customer numbers, so we have customer # 155. His invoices are in folder /invoices/155 directory. I want him to be able to type in his customer # and be directed with a button click to his directory with all his invoices.
Now I have coded the below code but it only works when I click on the button with the mouse. In Internet Explorer When I press enter it gives me a bunch of gook in the address bar and doesn't do anything. It looks like this in the address bar:
file:///C:/Users/My%20Name/Desktop/test.html?dir=%2Finvoices%2F&userinput=155
Instead of loading the folder /invoices/155/.
<html>
<head>
<title>test</title>
</head>
<form name="goto" action="">
<input name="dir" type="hidden" value="/invoices/">
<input name="userinput" type="text"> <input type="button" value="try me" onclick="window.location=this.form.dir.value+userinput.value">
</form>
Can anyone tell me what is wrong with the code and what can I do to fix it? Thanks in advance.
In some browsers the form will be posted when you press enter, eventhough there is no submit button. Use a submit button, and catch the submit, then you handle all cases:
<form name="goto" action="" onsubmit="window.location=this.dir.value+this.userinput.value;return false;">
<input name="dir" type="hidden" value="/invoices/">
<input name="userinput" type="text"> <input type="submit" value="try me">
</form>
It won't work, if you use file protocol. Especially in IE. You need a real web server.
And to let a customer type in his on id is extremely insecure. Anyone could type in any id. Use a login.
It is really*** important to sanitize every user input to prevent abuse.
It is a long way to go.
I think you should go for onsubmit on <form>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>test</title>
<script>
function handleFormSubmit(form)
{
window.location = form.dir.value + form.userinput.value;
return false;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form onsubmit="return handleFormSubmit(this)">
<input name="dir" type="hidden" value="/invoices/">
<input name="userinput" type="text">
<input type="submit" value="try me" >
</form>
</body>
</html>​​​​​​​
BTW:
Inlining javascript is not so good. Use script tag or external .js-file.
Edit:
Oops! OK, the error was that I wrote this.form.dir but it needed to be this.dir because this already referred to the form, now that the javascript handler was on the form tag (onsubmit="<handler-code>"). That works - http://jsfiddle.net/Q875a/
Edit 2:
Inlining javascript means that you write javascript code in your html tags (form, input,...) in the onXXX attributes - it's not readable. Having your script in a script tag within a handler-function (i.e. handleFormSubmit) makes it much more readable especially if your site gets more and more script in it - see current script and onsubmit-attribute.
Finally, if you want to to take a step further to crossbrowser, powerful javascript development you should take a look at jQuery - it's imho the door to really professional and exiting javascript programming!
JSFiddle to test:
http://jsfiddle.net/yNTK5/
jQuery-links concerning the topic:
http://api.jquery.com/submit/
http://api.jquery.com/on/
http://api.jquery.com/ready/

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