[Techtalk] html and focus

Thu Nov 9 18:01:33 UTC 2006

At 07:00 AM 11/9/2006, Robyn M wrote:

>I'm trying to work out how to get the first input box to have the focus
>when I open a page with a form.

Simplest way? Do like this:

<body onload="document.getElementById('some_id').focus();">

... stuff including opening <form> tag ...

<input type="text" name="whatever" id="some_id">

In the <input> tag, you can certainly have "whatever" and "some_id" 
be the same; I just wanted to highlight the fact that having the 
<input>'s id attribute match the argument to the getElementById() 
call in the <body> onload event is the real key to making this work.

Naturally, this assumes the user has JavaScript turned on; I'm not 
sure there's any way to do this without JS.

                                                 --Kai MacTane
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"And when I squinted/The world seemed rose-tinted;
  Angels appeared to descend..."
                                                 --Depeche Mode,
                                                  "Waiting for the Night" 