Create a HTML table where each TR is a FORM

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to create a table where each row is a form. I want that each input is in a different table division, but I still need that for example, all first inputs belong to the same table head and so on.

What I'm trying to do is an editable grid.

I dunno if I've explained myself, more or less this:

<table>
    <tr>
        <form method="GET" action="whatever">
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
        </form>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <form method="GET" action="whatever">
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
            <td><input type="text"/></td>
        </form>
    </tr>
</table>

But apparently I cannot arrange the tags in that way (or so is what the w3c validator said).

Any good way to do this?

Kind regards.

Answer 1

Tables are not meant for this, why don't you use <div>'s and CSS?

Answer 2

I second Harmen's div suggestion. Alternatively, you can wrap the table in a form, and use javascript to capture the row focus and adjust the form action via javascript before submit.

Answer 3

You may have issues with column width, but you can set those explicitly.

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>
       <form>
         <table>
           <tr>
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
           </tr>
         </table>
       </form>
     </td>
    </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
       <form>
         <table>
           <tr>
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
             <td></td> 
           </tr>
         </table>
       </form>
     </td>
    </tr>
  </table>

You may want to also consider making it a single form, and then using jQuery to select the form elements from the row you want, serialize them, and submit them as the form.

See: http://api.jquery.com/serialize/

Also, there are a number of very nice grid plugins: http://www.google.com/search?q=jquery+grid&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Answer 4

Hi,

it's as simple as not using a table for markup, as stated by Harmen. You're not displaying data after all, you're collecting data.

I'll take for example the question 23 here: http://accessible.netscouts-ggmbh.eu/en/developer.html#fb1_22_5

On paper, it's good as it is. If you had to display the results, it'd probably be OK.
But you can replace it with ... 4 paragraphs with a label and a select (option's would be the headers of the first line). One paragraph per line, this is far more simple.

Answer 5

If all of these rows are related and you need to alter the tabular data ... why not just wrap the entire table in a form, and change GET to POST (unless you know that you're not going to be sending more than the max amount of data a GET request can send).

(That's assuming, of course, that all of the data is going to the same place.)

<form method="POST" action="your_action">
<table>
<tr>
<td><input type="text" name="r1c1" value="" /></td>
<!-- ... snip ... -->
</tr>
<!-- ... repeat as needed ... -->
</table>
</form>