Asp.Net MVC: Forms being block elements

Answer 1

It would probably help if you could explain a bit more about how you want the stuff to interact. That said, no law says a form can only have one submit button, and, when submitted it is possible to figure out which button is clicked--the name/value (text) of the button appear in the posted data. Exactly how to handle that really goes to what needs to happen and how you want to architect it, but you can definitely give a form multiple buttons.

--UPDATE--

Thanks for the clairifications. I think your best bet would be to use normal links and style them a bit:

a.button { display: block; width: 100px; float: left; }

They should be nice big clickable things in iTouches and in other more modern mobiles and degrade nicely in older mobile stuff as there really ain't nothing that can do HTML that doesn't support links.

Answer 2

If I understand what you are asking, then sorry there is no such function. You would have to find or create your own method that would identify the client and then output the correct HTML code and CSS to accommodate that device. It may be better to find a solution on the user side of the code. You could maybe use display:inline; to forge the button to act like an inline element no matter what. It should work in all major browsers (http://www.quirksmode.org/css/display.html), and this this probably includes the iPhone browser because it is safari based.

Answer 3

If you are not collecting data from the user, than they just look like simple links.

Answer 4

this might solve your problem

another solution: if you can use javascript, make a DIV and a onclick action on it

like what Jeff did here on SO with the [Votes] | [Answers] | [Views] "button" on the home page on the left side of every question

Answer 5

HTML buttons don't have to be inside forms. You can have a button with a javascript onclick handler that does whatever you want, like setting a form's action and submit it, or load a new document.

<input type="button" value="Home"
  onclick="location.href='/index.php'" />
<input type="button" value="Rooms"
  onclick="var f=document.getElementById('myform');f.submit()" />
<input type="button" value="Create"
  onclick="var f=document.getElementById('myform');f.action='/create.php';f.submit()" />

Those buttons can then be styled in any way.

If your form isn't collecting data, then all your buttons can behave like the "Home" button in my example.

Answer 6

Use css to style anchor links like buttons. That way you get rid of the useless forms and maintain affordability and clickability.

Answer 7

I haven't tried this so I can't say if it will work or not, but could you not just set the forms on the page to "display:inline"?

Answer 8

When you post a form, the name attribute of the button used to post it is sent as a form value. Give each button a name, and then check the Form collection (or an Asp.Net MVC intermediary) for the button's name.

if(!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.Form["myButtonName"])) {
    //myButtonName has been pressed.
}

EDIT:

Problem is that turns out a form is a block element so that it's not possible to get to button next to each other. (Why they are block elements I'd like to know.)

Forms are block elements because if they were inline elements it would be invalid to nest tags like p and div inside of them (both of which are handy in constructing forms).