[ILUG] HTML/Javascript question...

[Braun Brelin]

Hello all,

I'm not sure if I can give enough non-generic info to describe the
problem, but here goes...

I have a web based form that looks kinda like this (pardon the ASCII graphics)


Field 1:  ---------------------------------------------------------------
            |                                                         
    |  (text field)
           -----------------------------------------------------------------

           ----------------
           | Lookup  |   - submit button
           ---------------


Field 2: ----------------------------------------------------------------
            |                                                              |
            |                                                         
    |  (text area field)
            |                                                              |
           -----------------------------------------------------------------

If a user inputs data into field 2 (the text area field) *before*
putting anything in
field 1 and then pressing lookup (Which goes off to a DB and returns a value
into field 1)  the data in field 2 vanishes.

The HTML form, unfortunately, is built from a perl program (OTRS) and
is not a static file so I'm having some trouble figuring out why this
is happening.  My question isn't why is OTRS doing this, but, in
general, what would cause text from a field to vanish like this? The
lookup button, as far as I can tell, calls some javascript to validate
the data in field 1 and then somehow, magically, calls the DB to
return a value to field 1 (i.e. it's a name lookup and field 1 allows
you to type in a partial match).

I'm guessing that the programmer in question did something stupid like
think that people would always put something into field 1 before
typing anything into field 2, but the OTRS code is so convoluted that
I'm having a difficult time following it...
Braun Brelin