Hi all,
I have a user login form which the browser keeps populating because of its form fill feature. So when anyone goes to log in it shows the previous login's username and password. How can I stop the browser from populating a text field?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers, Diego
Try adding autocomplete="off" to the input. In Rails' ruby, this would be :autocomplete => :off
-Rob
Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com
Thank you Rob!
Unfortunately, the autocomplete attribute is IE only and doesn’t belong to any (X)HTML standard. Therefore browsers like Opera and Firefox may or may not support it. Firefox, for the record, does not.
RSL
I spoke incorrectly. Sorta. I’ll stand by the fact that autocomplete is an invalid HTML attribute but apparently Firefox does support it. However, it needs to be on the form and not the input. Not that I’m endorsing using invalid HTML. Ick. I’m still searching for a valid HTML solution but wanted to correct my error.
RSL
in firefox you have to go into the preferences and turn the feature off under the privacy tab.
I have a user login form which the browser keeps populating because of its form fill feature. So when anyone goes to log in it shows the previous login's username and password. How can I stop the browser from populating a text field?
You do know you can turn this feature off in the browser, correct? Just checking.
At least on Mac, Firefox 2.0.0.2 and Safari 2.0.4 both support this on the element. I haven’t check recently, but I think I first found this with respect to IE (6.0?) on Windows about a year ago.
Perhaps you need to think about the reason you want “valid” (X)HTML.
[http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whereourstandardswentwrong](http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whereourstandardswentwrong)
I don’t think that you’ll find a de jure standard, but this de facto one works for me.
-Rob
Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com
autocomplete = "off" is works well for ie, firefox 2(with enabled privacy). tested.
the "problem" of xhtml compliance ? forget about this incompartibility, in this case this is only the way.
I don't think this should be done anyways, in the End it's a Browser side feature about which the User should decide weither to use it or not. If the user wants to stor his username & password fields, let him do it. If not, he will disable it (and it's disabled by default // most browsers ask weither to act that way or not)
I gotta agree with Thorsten. Not only are you taking away a user’s choices [as opposed to giving him more] but there’s the [and I can’t stress this enough] invalid markup issue. That’s two reasons not to use this feature. 
RSL
I agree with Russel about taking away the users’ choices, but for the record, here’s a (untested) solution using javascript:
function blankFields() { document.myform.username.value = “”; document.myform.password.value = “”; }
Then you use .
-N
if you're worried about XHTML validation failing, you can do dirty
tricks like:
Event.observe(window,'load',function(){ $$('input').invoke('setAttribute','autocomplete','off'); });
(tested this only in FF, YMMV).
best, thomas
While this works… It’s kinda the equivalent of changing your answers on a test after the teacher’s already graded it. Either ignore the restraints of validation or follow them but this is just pretending. [God, I hope that doesn’t sound super-snotty.] I agree with Rob in his [way] previous comment to me about questioning your rationale for following standards but I do always aim for valid markup. It just seems weird not to. To me. YMMV.
RSL
If validation is used as a tool for making sure the page structure
itself is sound (as opposed to following the standards for their own
sake), it can help-- some things you want to have just aren't covered
by the standards, or don't work because browsers don't implement them
correctly.
So a mixture of having pages validate (and tools aware of XHTML
working nicely) and "injecting" workarounds for both of the
aforementioned issues is working out fine. For me. 
The "autocomplete" attribuet is probably a bad example anyway, as
normally you always want this the way the user decides, except for
certain cases (for example if you implement server-side
autocompleting, and browsers interfere).
Alas, I don't think there's one single unified answer for how to deal
with this, it really depends on the circumstances, your "style" of
coding, etc.
Best, Thomas