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Formatted Entry Fields
10
56 Genie Application Style Guide February 2001
■ Force the entry type to numeric or alpha, if appropriate.
For example, in some environments, postal codes are numeric only. For those
countries, force the entry type to numeric so that the user cannot enter alphabetic
characters.
■ Restrict the length of the string, if required.
This is helpful for phone numbers or credit card entries. For example, use
maxlength="N"; where “N” is the maximum number of characters to limit the
length of the entry. Use NNN if exactly 3 numbers are required along with the
maxlength attribute.
Example 10-2
Zip code:<br/>
<input name="zip" format="NNNNN" maxlength="5" title="5 digit zip:"/>
Example 10-2 shows how to define a maximum length for an input string.
■ Prefill known data.
With the Openwave browser, Mitsubishi Trium and Nokia 6210/6250 (but NOT the
7110 with browser version prior to 5.0) including forced characters in the format can
help the user as they will need to enter less information. For example in an expiry date
for a credit card field the format of NN\/\2\0NN could be used – this would only
require the user to enter four digits for any month from January 2000 to
December 2099.
In addition, with ALL browsers specifying a default value where one is sensible (or
can be derived from personalisation information) avoids large quantities of data input.
For example where a login and a password is absolutely required in some m-
commerce sites consider pre-filling the username (which the user can always change)
but not the password.
Openwave Formatted Input
■ Set the default input mode to numeric when the entry typically is numeric or
starts with a number, but also allow the user to enter letters or symbols.
For example, phone numbers generally consist of numbers only, but in some cases the
user may also need to enter a special character, such as + or #. This applies to postal
codes for some countries, purchase orders, ticket confirmations, and part numbers.
Example 10-3
<input name="phnum" type="phonenum"/>
Example 10-3 shows how to use type="phonenum" so that the input mode is
initially numeric but so that users can change to alphanumeric or symbol mode.