Back Button Handle A Dynamic Form

Question

I have a form with an array of text fields. The user (through javascript) can add an arbitrary number of text fields to the form. After submitting the form and pressing the back button the form displays only with the fields that were on the original form when it was first rendered (any added text fields are lost). What is the best way to allow the back button to render the form in the state when the user submitted it? Any ideas are welcome, some things I've tried are:

• Put the form data in a cookie (this doesn't work great for a couple reasons but the biggest killer for me is that cookies are limited to 4K in size)
• Put the form data in a session
• Submit the form via AJAX and then manage the history

Thanks for the help. I've posted a test form on my website at http://fishtale.org/formtest/f1.php. Also here is a simple form exhibiting the behavior I mentioned:

<form action="f2.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="text[]" id="text1"/>
<input type="submit" name="saveaction" value="submit form" />
</form>

<a href="f2.php" id="add_element">Add Form Element</a>

<script type="text/javascript" 
        src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.1/jquery.min.js" ></script>

<script type="text/javascript" >
    $('#add_element').click(function (event) {
        event.preventDefault();
        $('#text1').after('<input type="text" name="text[]" />');
    });
</script>

This is similar to a question I posted a while ago, Best Way For Back Button To Leave Form Data, however, this form's elements are modified by the user.

Answer 1

How about creating an <input type="hidden"> (with no name or outside the form so it's not submitted) in which you store an encoded list of extra fields to add and their values? While the browser won't remember newly-added fields on ‘back’, it will remember the values of hidden fields that were in the form from the start.

Here's an example that saves the extra fields on document unload and retrieves them on ready:

<input type="hidden" id="remembertexts" />

<form action="http://www.google.com/" method="get">
    <div id="texts">
        <input type="text" name="text[]" value="" />
    </div>
    <div>
        <input type="submit" />
        <input type="button" id="addtext" value="+" />
    </div>
</form>

<script type="text/javascript">

    // Add new field on button press
    //
    $('#addtext').click(function() {
        addInput('');
    });

    function addInput(text) {
        $('#texts input').eq(0).clone().val(text).appendTo('#texts');
    };

    // Store dynamic values in hidden field on leaving
    //
    $(window).bind('beforeunload', function() {
        var vals= [];
        $('#texts input').each(function() {
            vals.push(encodeURIComponent(this.value));
        });
        $('#remembertexts').val(vals.join(';'));
    });

    // Retrieve dynamic values on returning to page
    //
    $(function() {
        var extratexts= $('#remembertexts').val().split(';').slice(1);
        $.each(extratexts, function() {
            addInput(decodeURIComponent(this));
        });
    });
</script>

Notes:

• You can use form.onsubmit instead of window.onbeforeunload if you only need it to remember values over a submission. onunload doesn't work as some browsers will already have stored the old form values before that event occurs.

• In Firefox the position of the hidden input is important. For some reason, if you put it below the dynamically-added fields, Firefox gets confused about which input it is and fails to remember the value.

• This example doesn't work in Opera. It can be made to work in Opera, but it's a pain. Opera's calling of load and unload events is inconsistent so you have to use onsubmit instead, or setting the hidden field on a polling interval, or something. Worse, when Opera remembers previous form-field values, it actually doesn't fill them in until after onload has fired! This already causes many, many form-scripting problems. You can work around that by putting a small timeout in your onload to wait until the form values have gone in if you need Opera compatibility.

Answer 2

I can't find a prewritten library for this, but I'm sure its been solved before. If I had to it myself I would take this approach:

1. Use the command pattern so that each method which modifies the page's UI by adding controls also invokes an AJAX method to push the method invoked (textual Javascript representation) onto a queue stored in the server's session.

2. After body onLoad completes, use an AJAX method to query the server's session for a command queue for the page the user is on. If one is retrieved, just eval each member of the queue to rebuild the page's UI in the same order the user did it.

Keep in mind with this approach you are recording not just additions of controls, but removals as well. You will require separate state holders for user input controls, like text boxes (you will also likely need server-side session with AJAX method access).