Pulldown menu-How to get them NOT to reset when revisiting the page?

The option that I originally picked is reset to back to defaults-why?

[brizad]

This happens on some computers and not in others-why?

On my computer if I fill out a form, or use a pulldown menu, and then click "GO" or "submit" and then use the back button to go to the previous page to change the parameters, the pulldown menus are still in the same position, or the form still has the words in it.

However, every other computer in the office erases the form or goes back to the default settings on the pulldown menus.

Using IE there is the problem, but Netscape works OK.
I have cleared the cache, set all browser settings the same, but still the other computer do this.
Any suggestions?

[chris_f]

brizad,

In order to do this you need to use something like a querystring and some form of server side scripting (like ASP). It's not really possible with HTML. There might be possible with Javascript but I doubt it.

Chris

[ShawnR]

I thought it should work fine. I've heard of problems if the options in the drop-down box are dynamically created (e.g. based on the selection of a previous selection box in the form), but not if it is straight HTML. Have you validated your html? Post a short cut-down version of your form... Are the IE versions & patch levels that don't work the same as the one that does? When you say 'cleared the cache' do you mean deleted the temporary files?

Shawn

[rainborick]

Ages ago I read a blurb on eBay that relates to this. eBay's older auction item submission form page used to incorporate about 150K of HTML, and the user's entires in the various form fields could add quite a bit more. After you submitted this form, their site displayed a preview of your auction ad to allow you to go back and make any changes. Well, apparently many users were running into this phenomenon of their prior form entires disappearing when they hit the <BACK> button because eBay inserted a link to a small 'help' message on the topic. Their explaination boiled down to saying that it was a low memory condition that would sometimes make a browser dump the form contents and that the only solution was to buy more RAM or adjust the browser's memory settings. I don't know if its right or not, but it seems plausible enough and explains the varying results brozad was seeing.

[brizad]

rainborick: The RAM idea seems plausable, it is something that I never thought of. Also the browser memory.. I will check that too...thanks.

The general problem that we are having doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to it-that is the problem.
The computers that have this problem seem to have it on all sites. The ones that work OK seem to work on many different sites. My home and work computers are fine but the 8-10 other computers in my office all have this problem. This is why I think that it must be some setting that I have done (and can't remember) that others have not done.

It is really not a "problem" per se, just a major pain in the butt and a time waster. We have a lot of price calculators where you can set about 10 different parameters (date, price range, etc) you get a price and then you want to change just one parameter, hit the back button, and then all the pulldowns are back to default and you have to reenter everything again. Do this 40 or 50 times a day and you have wasted a lot of time!