I like the idea of not updating the content straight away (as the user might not want to see it updated), but depending on the situation I would personally make the submit button look grey and inactive unless they've changed something in which case it'll be normal and (black). Although actually making it inactive could be bad as the javascript might not correctly update it's status to active, preventing the customer from actually submitting the data they've just painstakingly entered. The whole progressive enhancement/graceful degradation thing.

However, on the other hand to having it not automatically update, the thing that I hate the most on a website is when it looses valid data that I've entered (clicked, selected, whatever), which is where saving the current state using Ajax can be useful, although probably over the top for most things anyway.

Ohh btw Tedd, the problem with your implementation is that as a user, if I change some settings, but want them back, when I set it back to say C 5 as I had it before, the button is still Red, and I could get confuzled about what I'd previously entered. Obviously having a reset button would fix that, (as long as it set the submit text back to normal), or you could get PHP to set the javascript to check if the values are as they were before and set the button back. Obviously a lot more javascript than the 3 lines of code you've got there, for only a minor usability point, especially if the users previous selection is listed next to the actual buttons, but it's at least something to be aware of.


My 2c.

Michael Kubler
*G*rey *P*hoenix *P*roductions <http://www.greyphoenix.biz>



Nitsan Bin-Nun wrote:
Since you are using JS why not just update the content straight away?
(ajax/etc)

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 7:55 PM, tedd <tedd.sperl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi gang:

I had a problem and solved it -- here's the write-up:

http://www.webbytedd.com/b/update-select/index.php

What do you think of the solution?

Cheers,

tedd
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