We’ve all seen web applications that require the user to do a repetitive task. Unfortunately, programmers often ignore how unnatural it is to go through a multitude of form fields, how unclean the design looks, and how hard-coding the number of elements one can enter at a single time limits the use of your application. Stick with keeping it simple, and keeping it simple means keeping things clean and intuitive. (more…)

Form validation is vital to every web based application, and too often I’ve seen it implemented page-by-page. Custom code blocks to check for email address formats, telephone numbers, social security numbers, etc.

If you need client-side form validation and you can rely on javascript, I highly recommend Andrew Tetlaw’s “ Really easy field validation.” It does require prototype.js and of course, java script enabled browsing.

I’ve written a few additional validators that I’ll post sometime soon for anyone that might be interested.