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November 02, 2007 by blogging developer

If you try to use Enter key in ASP.NET, according to your browser type, you can get really weird results. In my previous article Default Button in ASP.NET 1.1, I described two methods to make enter key default button for form inputs in ASP.NET 1.1.

Fortunately, ASP.NET 2.0 makes this easier by introducing a concept of "default button" that can be used with either a <form> or <asp:panel> control. What button will be "clicked" depends of where acutally cursor is and what button is choosen as a default button for form or a panel.

For example, with the below sample:

If the enter key is selected the first time the page is loaded, "button1" will be the button that receives the post-back event. If the enter key is hit while the user has their cursor focus within the "textbox1" textbox (contained within the <asp:panel>), then "button2" will be the button that receives the post-back event.

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Tag : defaultbutton, enter key, default button, asp.net, 2.0, form, panel

Categories : All | ASP.NET

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Comments

February 13. 2009 16:16

Ah! Thanks so much for this post. ASP.NET's insistence on a single server-side form per page is a bit of a bugbear of mine. Clearly this results in the annoying focus on the first button on the page whereas in olden days you'd have several (client-side) forms and the first button on the *form* that was focussed would get the keypress. This is the behaviour that users are likely to expect.

I was about to whip up some needlessly complex jQuery when I stumbled across your post documenting a .NET2.0 feature that I hadn't come across, which has allowed me to keep the default button selection in the C# where I won't lose it!
Thanks again
Jon.

Jon | Reply

October 22. 2009 14:55

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This post was mentioned on Twitter by bloggingdev: Enter Key Default Button in ASP.NET 2.0 - Setting the enter key as default button for form inputs - http://su.pr/6pSdle

uberVU - social comments | Reply

December 26. 2009 19:25

I guess there's always an easier way ...

cash loans | Reply