Php Submit buttons in webpages

Question

I originally had a submit button like this

<form action="<?php $self ?>" method="post" >
    <input name="search" type="hidden" >
    <INPUT TYPE = "Submit" Name = "Submit1" VALUE = "search">
</form>

it made this statment true

if(isset($_POST['Search'])){}

For a time all was well then i made my submit button a image

<form action="<?php $self ?>" method="post" >
    <input name="Search" type="hidden" />
    <INPUT value="Search" TYPE="image" SRC="search.jpg" BORDER="0"  ALT="Search">
</form>

For more time all was good untill i wanted to make this button into a text link..

I looked on the internet and read many things where i learned that it cant be done in html but java script was needed.. so i tryed to use this code but it no longer made my statment true..

this is the javascript submit button i found

<a href='javaScript:document.FORM_NAME.submit()'>Submit</a>

My two questions to you wizards out there are 1) where do i put the value of the submit? 2) how do i get this to replace my earlyer submit buttons?

Answer 1

If you want an image as a submit button? Why not use the button element

<button name="search" value="search" type="submit">
    Send<img src="/icons/wow.gif" alt="wow" /></button>

see: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.5

Answer 2

Making a button into a text link is simple CSS.

<input type="submit" id="submit" value="submit" class="submitbutton" />

CSS:

input.submitbutton{
margin: 0;
border: none;
background-color: transparent;
padding: 0;
}
/* Make sure the hover has the same element properties as the first, obviously changing the font colour on hover is something acceptable */
input.submitbutton:hover{
margin: 0;
border: none;
background-color: transparent;
padding: 0;
}

Answer 3

For starters you need to give your form a name corresponding to what's in the Javascript link (in this case, FORM_NAME):

<form name="FORM_NAME" action="<?php $self ?>" method="post" >
  <input name="search" type="hidden" />
  <a href='javaScript:document.FORM_NAME.submit()'>Submit</a>
</form>

Then on the page that checks the form, you need to check for $_POST['search'], which comes from the input. I don't think case matters, but it makes sense to always check using the same string anyway.

I'm not 100% sure what this form is meant to do since it doesn't seem to submit anything, don't you want to use a text input so the user can search for something?

Answer 4

Just out of curiosity, how will users without javascript enabled submit the form?

How about using CSS to style submit input to look like a text rather than a button?

examples here: http://cssm.wordpress.com/2006/10/01/how-do-i-make-a-submit-button-look-like-text/ http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=403667