This is probably very simple, but could somebody tell me how to get the cursor blinking on a text box on page load?
Think about your user interface before you do this. I assume (though none of the answers has said so) that you'll be doing this when the document loads using jQuery's ready()
function. If a user has already focussed on a different element before the document has loaded (which is perfectly possible) then it's extremely irritating for them to have the focus stolen away.
You could check for this by adding onfocus
attributes in each of your <input>
elements to record whether the user has already focussed on a form field and then not stealing the focus if they have:
var anyFieldReceivedFocus = false;
function fieldReceivedFocus() {
anyFieldReceivedFocus = true;
}
function focusFirstField() {
if (!anyFieldReceivedFocus) {
// Do jQuery focus stuff
}
}
<input type="text" onfocus="fieldReceivedFocus()" name="one">
<input type="text" onfocus="fieldReceivedFocus()" name="two">
The line $('#myTextBox').focus()
alone won't put the cursor in the text box, instead use:
$('#myTextBox:text:visible:first').focus();
This is what I prefer to use:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
$("#fieldID").focus();
});
</script>
Why is everybody using jQuery for something simple as this.
<body OnLoad="document.myform.mytextfield.focus();">
Set focus on the first text field:
$("input:text:visible:first").focus();
This also does the first text field, but you can change the [0] to another index:
$('input[@type="text"]')[0].focus();
Or, you can use the ID:
$("#someTextBox").focus();
Sorry for bumping an old question. I found this via google.
Its also worth noting that its possible to use more than one selector, thus you can target any form element, and not just one specific type.
eg.
$('#myform input,#myform textarea').first().focus();
This will focus the first input or textarea it finds, and of course you can add other selectors into the mix as well. Hnady if you can't be certain of a specific element type being first, or if you want something a bit general/reusable.