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How to get IE7 to accept a jQuery "name" attribute change on a <FORM>

Sorry for the slightly hazy title.
I'm using jQuery and AJAX to load a page containing multiple DIVs with their own individual content, from various areas of our site. 2 of the DIVs I'm loading pull in some forms, however due to a legacy issue all the forms on the site have the same "name", which is "proDep".

I've used jQuery to change the name of the form...
$('#iDerv form').attr("name", "dervForm");
and Firefox is happy with this and lets me address the 2 forms seperately, "proDep" and "dervForm", but IE just does something wierd that I don't understand.

It now treats "proDep" as a 2 dimensional array, with proDep[0] being "proDep", and proDep[1] being "newName".
I can access all the form fields using "proDep[0][4]" for example, but this is no good as I need to run functions that refer to fields in proDep as a 1d array.

It also then ignores the .append() ; function to add new elements to the form.

Is there a different way to change the name of an element or is this just something that IE can't handle?

// iDerv DIV hidden on load
$('#iDerv').hide();
 
...
...
 
function v3_processModel () {
         // looks at fields in first form
	var formMake = document.proDep.fjs_make.value;
	var formModel = document.proDep.fjs_model.value;
	
         ...
         ...
 
	// loads new content into DIV "iDerv", including another "proDep" form
	url = "pageHoldingproDep.cfm?make="+make;
	updateElem('iDerv',url);	
 
	// reveals the div and changes the form name
	$('#iDerv').show();
	$('#iDerv form').attr("name","dervForm");
	// add new buttons
	$('#iDerv form').append('<input type="submit" onClick="return v3_loadOptions();" value="Add Options">');
	$('#iDerv form').append('<input type="submit" onClick="return v3_processCalcClick();" value="Calculate">');
	return false;
}

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hielo

try:
$('#iDerv form:eq(0)').attr("name","dervForm");

comcar

ASKER

Thanks hielo but that didn't do it I'm afraid. I've found out a few more things... although it's still got me stumped...

The form name does change, according to the IE Developer toolbar, it shows the name as "dervForm", but using DebugBar or Microsoft Script Debugger's console, if I type in;

"document.proDep[1].innerHTML" - get the HTML for the second form...
"document.dervForm.innerHTML" - and this throws a null object error!

I read somewhere about someone having similar sorts of troubles with ammending "onClick" values that IE would ignore, something to do with cloning? Anyone got any ideas?!

Graham Hirst

If you defining the id name I dont think you have to specifiy that it is a form

$('#iDerv').attr("name","dervForm");

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comcar

ASKER

The ID is for the containing DIV, as shown in the simplified code snippet. The FORM is a child of the DIV, and I've also tried changing the code to:

$('#iDerv > form').attr("name","dervForm");

<div id="iDerv">
  <form name="proDep"></form>
</div>
 
// so with this line of code I'm trying to achieve the bottom example
$('#iDerv > form').attr("name","dervForm");
 
<div id="iDerv">
  <form name="dervForm"></form>
</div>

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hielo

>>document.proDep[1].innerHTML" - get the HTML for the second form...
Correct. That's because you have two forms with the same name.
document.proDep[0].innerHTML

should give you the first form. As a matter of fact, you can even change the name via:
document.forms[0].name="myForm1";
document.forms[1].name="myForm2";

comcar

ASKER

I think I see what the problem is now, the normal Javascript code ignores the changes made by jQuery.

So I need to make the changes initially using "document.getElementById..." and then refer back to them in the same way, and I can only access the jQuery labelled form "dervForm" if I use jQuery functions to call it.

So is the jQuery/$ object just like a mask for the HTML and JS below? In IE at least, as Firefox is happy for me to jump between the 2.

comcar

ASKER

Ah no load of nonsense I'm talking.

document.forms[1].name="dervForm"; - still leads to the same thing, I suppose this is because the page is being loaded with the form, the array of 2 proDeps is created, then I'm trying to mess around with it.

I'm going to try to use REGEX to find "form... name="proDep" and change it for "form...name="dervForm" when it comes back from the AJAX call and before it's written to the page

SOLUTION

hielo

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

comcar

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How to get IE7 to accept a jQuery &quot;name&quot; attribute change on a &lt;FORM&gt;

How to get IE7 to accept a jQuery "name" attribute change on a <FORM>