Form inputs stored as you type

Hey guys, I have a form with 3 fields 1 input, 1 select and 1 textarea. Is there a way to store the information as they type?

The reason why I need this is because if you are not logged in the submit button will take you to a fancybox with another login form or a signup one. So of course if the user logs in the page is r开发者_开发技巧efreshing and they loose the text they inputed.

Thanks.

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You can totally use YUI's Storage module, it'll hold everything in 1) HTML5 memory, 2) SWf memory 3) Google Gears memory 4) ysql or something, so I read.

I've tested HTML5 mem and Swfstore, both ace.

Edit: Here's an excellent YUI Storage example, it counts every 5 keystrokes, perhaps you'd call the same save method when focus leaves the form handles you're working with.

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AJAX could do this, though you are probably better off passing the contents of the inputs in POST and retrieving them if the page is reloaded as a postback from the login page.

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There is no trivial solution to this problem. The simplest way to overcome would be asking login screen before asking for user input.

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YUI storage module answer is a great option. Otherwise, you're going to have to change the behaviour of the authentication logic which automatically redirects you to the login page. You would have to store the posted values in some temporary server-side location, and re-post those values after the user logs in.

Another option would be to authenticate the user via a dynamic HTML login form and Ajax before actually submitting the form. Either way it changes the authentication logic of your application a lot.

Actually, I think the root of the problem is that you're presenting the user with a form which requires authentication to use before they are authenticated. I think you should either force the user to authenticate before presenting them with the form, or don't require authentication for posting the form (which probably isn't a good idea).

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The most straight forward and simplest way that first comes to mind:

Store the information in a cookie - first thing when they hit submit so you have what they typed at any time, logged in - out - hour later, maybe even next time they visit etc.

If you can't use a cookie, maybe save it to the database in a temp table of some sort, relative to a specific session or anonymous user....

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as you mention i think you can use simple SESSION variables for all your fields OR you can use AJAX.where you can popup one light-box at the same page and then login and process further you want.

Thanks.