Question

I am sure this is a basic one.

I am not sure how to describe this but when I press return in an input field it changes the URL to put the input name and value pair in the URL, e.g. for this code :

<form name="searchForm">  
<input name="searchTerm">  
</form>  

after having typed “fred” in the searchTerm field and pressed return, the URL changes to

test.html?searchTerm=fred

The thing is I have a submit button to do an XMLhhtprequest how do I stop this URL change?

Answer 1

Just handle the submit event for the form. The easiest (but ugliest) way to do it is this:

<form name="searchForm" onsubmit="return false">

But since you have Ajax set up (which should be listening to submit anyways) use evt.preventDefault(); or return false; there instead. Also remember to only cancel when the request appears to have succeeded!