Question

Button within link

Asked by: todd_farmer

I have a button inside a link element, and the behavior in IE is confusing.  The HTML looks something like this:

<a href="http://www.google.com" title="Update"><input type="button" value="Update" class="actionBtn"></a>

This works fine in FF, but not in IE.  To complicate matters, it appears that the onClick event handler fires in both FF and IE, so something like this works:

<a href="http://www.google.com" title="Update" onClick="alert('clicked link');return false;"><input type="button" value="Update" class="actionBtn"></a>

Any idea what is happening here?  I know I could take the button out and style the link via CSS, but I'm looking for alteratives.

Thanks!

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Asked On
2006-05-05 at 09:56:37ID21839881
Tags

html

,

button

,

link

Topic

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Participating Experts
5
Points
250
Comments
12

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Answers

 

by: knightEknightPosted on 2006-05-05 at 10:43:53ID: 16616891

You can achieve the same thing without the link by using javascript like this:

<input type="button" value="Update" class="actionBtn" onclick="location='http://www.google.com/';" />

 

by: todd_farmerPosted on 2006-05-05 at 10:47:00ID: 16616915

Yeah, but I would like to avoid using Javascript.

 

by: knightEknightPosted on 2006-05-05 at 12:24:13ID: 16617634

Can you make a button image instead?

<a href="http://www.google.com" title="Update"><IMG src="mybutton.jpg" alt="Update" border="0" /></a>

 

by: todd_farmerPosted on 2006-05-05 at 12:46:18ID: 16617783

No, I'm pretty tied to using a button inside a link.  I'm hoping there is a simple explation/solution for what is happening in IE.  If not, I'll probably just use CSS on the link and jettison the button.

 

by: mvan01Posted on 2006-05-05 at 13:19:26ID: 16618013

Hi todd,

Try this:

<FORM METHOD="LINK" ACTION="page1.htm">
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Clickable Button">
</FORM>

Peace and joy.  mvan

 

by: todd_farmerPosted on 2006-05-05 at 13:38:47ID: 16618122

That doesn't seem to work for me, either.  I have a query string, and it does not appear to be passed when using that method:

<FORM METHOD="LINK" ACTION="page1.cgi?id=4">
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Clickable Button">
</FORM>

 

by: todd_farmerPosted on 2006-05-05 at 14:00:50ID: 16618274

I added the query string parameters as hidden form elements, and it works now.  I sure would rather have just a button inside a link.  Any ideas why this doesn't work in IE?

 

by: todd_farmerPosted on 2006-05-05 at 14:39:21ID: 16618492

Most specifically, I'm trying to figure out why the onClick event handler fires for the link, but the browser doesn't go to the href location.

 

by: QPRPosted on 2006-05-05 at 16:00:53ID: 16618952

try removing return false;

 

by: todd_farmerPosted on 2006-05-05 at 21:16:57ID: 16619983

The return false is only in the second example to show that the onclick event fires.  The first example has no onclick event handler, but IE still doesn't execute the link.

 

by: ThogekPosted on 2006-05-06 at 00:55:33ID: 16620647

The <input type="button"> element wasn't meant to be used this way, but was meant as a way to create a generic button to which you could attach (via script) any behavior you want.  I wouldn't expect to get a consistant behavior out of placing it inside of a hyperlink element.  :-/

Of course, you can always make your hyperlink look a lot like a button via CSS, although this is generally approximate, and the actual accuracy of the buttonish appearance may vary with OS (especially between Windows and Mac).

If it needs to look like a regular HTML button, the form-and-hidden-fields method you and mvan01 described above is probably the best answer you're going to get (although method="link" is undefined, so it's probably just assuming the default value of method="get", which is what you should be using for this sort of case).

 

by: siliconbritPosted on 2006-05-08 at 09:30:07ID: 16631970


The answer to your question is - the button is always rendered by the browser IN FRONT of the link context (and all other contexts), so when you place your mouse over the button, the click event is sent to the button, and not to the link.

This is intentional for all form elements, so that when you use a drop-down box, the list always appears over the content and is not obscured by other elements.  This is why sometimes you see badly rendered sites, where form elements such as buttons and text boxes appear over the top of other content.

When someone sees a button on a page, they expect to be able to click on it, and not have it obscured by some text or picture element, so it all makes sense.

Anyway, you have several options.

1) Use the onclick javascript handler.  In which case you need to relax your rule about using javascript.

2) Wrap the button in a form.  The example you tried earlier was using the method "link", if you want to use parameters, you need to use the method "get":

      <FORM METHOD="GET" ACTION="page1.cgi?id=4">
         <INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Clickable Button">
      </FORM>

3) Create an identical image of a button, with images for over and down states, and make the image a link.

4) CSS is the only way I know to place an active context over a form element, but you need to place the form elements inside a div with a lower z-index than a div that contains a link. Having said that, you need to fool the browser to re-position the higher div, and therefore the link context by using negative values, and I think this is now fixed in latest Firefox and IE6, so it's unlikely to be useful for you.

Try method (2) and let me know what happens

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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