How to hide/show sections of a HTML form

Question

I have a HTML form which when submitted sends an email with all the questions and answers using PHP.

I need to break the form down as it's too long. I need only one submit button and for the form to load only once. This obviously means that I need to use JavaScript show/hides.

I've tried using many different types but I can't get them to work properly with my form. It is quite large and seems to be very complicated to get to work with show/hide :(

I've used show/hide divs before but not tables.

Anyone have anything that can help?

What I'd like is,

• A next button that takes you to another section of the form.
• Whilst on the next section you can return back to the previous section or go on to another section again.
• The last section to contain previous or submit.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

That's quite a common request. Here is one way

• Break your form in pages using divs with easy to manage ids and only the first one visible

.

<form action=".." ..>
<!-- the first page has style set to be visible -->
<div id="formpage_1" style="visibility: visible; display: block; .."> 
  <label for="..">..</label>
  <input type=".." ..>
  ..
  <!-- NEXT button -->
  <input type="button" value="next" onclick="pagechange(1,2);">
</div>
<!-- the 2nd and following pages have style set to be invisible -->
<div id="formpage_2"  style="visibility: hidden; display: none; ..">
  <label for="..">..</label>
  <input type=".." ..>
  ..
  <!-- PREVIOUS and NEXT buttons -->
  <input type="button" value="back" onclick="pagechange(2,1);">
  <input type="button" value="next" onclick="pagechange(2,3);">
</div>
...
<div id="formpage_10"  style="visibility: hidden; display: none; ..">
  <label for="..">..</label>
  <input type=".." ..>
  ..
  <!-- PREVIOUS and SUBMIT buttons -->
  <input type="button" value="back" onclick="pagechange(10,9);">
  <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</div>

• Use a simple JS function to switch between the pages

.

function pagechange(frompage, topage) {
  var page=document.getElementById('formpage_'+frompage);
  if (!page) return false;
  page.style.visibility='hidden';
  page.style.display='none';

  page=document.getElementById('formpage_'+topage);
  if (!page) return false;
  page.style.display='block';
  page.style.visibility='visible';

  return true;
}

Edit

If you want to use a table layout, break the for into more tables (one for each page) and give the ids to the tables instead of the divs