What are the pros and cons using javascript in our form?

Question

I got this code in my submit form

<form id="myform" action='hello.php' method='GET'>
    <input type="button" name="newWin" onclick="frmSubmitSameWindows();">
    <input type="button" name="SameWin" onclick="frmSubmitNewWindows();">
<form>

Then use some js functions in the head;

function frmSubmitSameWindows() {
form.target = '';
form.submit();
}


function frmSubmitNewWindows() {
form.target = '_blank';
form.submit();
}

What is the pro and cons when we use javascript event function such as frmSubmitSameWin() and frmSubmitNewWin() in our form ? as far as i concern, this is the best solution when we need a way to submit things. Is there other preference ? the better way then the way i got now ?

Answer 1

Use onsubmit event on the form element. and use submit inputs instead buttons. this way you can have a single function to determine what you wanna do.

In addition form target = 'blank' is not recommend, as it's deprecated, and it's not supported in HTML 4.01 Strict / XHTML 1.0 Strict DTD.

Answer 2

What are the pros and cons using javascript in our form?

Pro: Offers seas of possibilities to improve user experience (dynamics, faster, no flash of content, etc).
Con: You should code it unobtrusively. Your example is not. It fails when the client has JS disabled.

I've developed lots of websites since ages, but I can't seem to remember a valid business reason to have two submit buttons, one to submit the form in the same window and other to submit it into a new window. I'd suggest to rethink this approach and end up with one submit button. The other flaws in the code are already mentioned by Mendy.