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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T13:31:35+00:00

I’m implementing a relatively simple autosave system and I’d like to do so using

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I’m implementing a relatively simple autosave system and I’d like to do so using the Prototype library. I’m using the PeriodicalUpdater request, but it’s not working as I’d hoped. In short, I’m trying to, periodically, send a textarea’s content via an AJAX request to a PHP page that will save it to a MySQL database. I’m doing something like (abbreviated code):

<html>

<head>

<script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/prototype.js"></script>

<script>

    function autosave() {
        new Ajax.PeriodicalUpdater('save_message', 'autosave.php', 
            { 
                method: 'post',
                parameters: {id: $('id').value, save_text: $('myInput').value},
                frequency: 5,
                decay: 2

            });
    }

</script>
</head>

<body>
<input type="hidden" id='id' name='id' />
<textarea id='myInput' name='myInput'></textarea>

<script>
autosave();
</script>
</body>
</html>

Then autosave.php will take the form contents and write them to my database. That part is working fine. What is happening, as I discovered, is PeriodicalUpdater is called with the original form input, then is called periodically with that initial form input.

So that was a long setup for a relatively short question: How do I use Prototype (if possible) to periodically make an AJAX request using the current textarea’s value?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    you could just use Ajax.Request with setinterval,something like this:

    document.observe("dom:loaded", function() { 
    intervalID = window.setInterval("autosave()",500);
});

function autosave() {
    new Ajax.Request('autosave.php', 
    { 
        method: 'post',
        parameters: {id: $('id').value, save_text: $('myInput').value},
    });
}
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