[WEB4LIB] Help with Site Search Page in Front Page

[george at library.caltech.edu]

The Reset button makes sense on forms with several (more than one at any
rate) text entry boxes.  The inclusion of a Reset button on simple forms
(one box) causes problems more often than not.  Without a Reset button, a
nicely designed search page has a single action focus, the Search button.
[Enter] will automatically start the search, unequivocally.  I've been
frustrated many times when blithely typing a search statement into a box and
hitting [Enter], only to realize to my chagrin, that the focus had shifted
to a superfluous Reset button.

If people want to remove the original text from a single text entry box,
highlighting and then typing or hitting delete is hardly onerous.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
Caltech, 1-43
Pasadena, CA  91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681