286203 - edinburghfirst.com - uses wrong JS for form submit

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English Other, defect)

Description

[Arne Henningsen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de-DE; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de-DE; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0

firefox does not open link when I try to book accomodation at the University of
Edinburgh (http://www.edinburghfirst.com)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. go to http://217.30.114.69/clients/Edinburgh%20First/EfirstPortal/bbsearch.asp
2. Search for a room (e.g. Single room from 5 April 2005 to 6 April 2005)
3. If it is available click on "BOOK NOW".

Actual Results:  
The desired web page doesn't load - only a "#" sign is added in the address field


Expected Results:  
It should open the form to book the room (M$-IE does this correctly - tested
using Linux and crossover office)

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

Js console shows

Error: document.forms is not a function
Source File:
http://217.30.114.69/clients/Edinburgh%20First/EfirstPortal/bbsearch.asp
Line: 1

The links are like
<a href="#" onclick="document.forms(0).submit(); return false;"
class="accommmenulinks">...</a>


Which seems wrong, one has to use [0] instead of (0) to access the first form in
the document.
<a href="#" onclick="document.forms[0].submit(); return false;"
class="accommmenulinks">...</a>


-> Tech Evang bug

Please inform the webmaster about this issue.
http://www.edinburghfirst.com/edinburghfirst/contactus.asp

Comment 2

[Arne Henningsen]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Js console shows
> 
> Error: document.forms is not a function
> Source File:
> http://217.30.114.69/clients/Edinburgh%20First/EfirstPortal/bbsearch.asp
> Line: 1
> 
> The links are like
> <a href="#" onclick="document.forms(0).submit(); return false;"
> class="accommmenulinks">...</a>
> 
> 
> Which seems wrong, one has to use [0] instead of (0) to access the first form in
> the document.
> <a href="#" onclick="document.forms[0].submit(); return false;"
> class="accommmenulinks">...</a>
> 
> 
> -> Tech Evang bug
> 
> Please inform the webmaster about this issue.
> http://www.edinburghfirst.com/edinburghfirst/contactus.asp

I wrote an email to them to complain that they have wrong JS code and I added a
link to this bug report.

However, I think this is nevertheless a shortcoming of mozilla, because a good
browser should IMHO be less sensitive to incorrect web pages, especially if a
browser that is (unfortunately) still most commonly used can handle this
incorrect JS code. 

Comment 3

[Arne Henningsen]

This serious shortcoming is still present in Firefox 1.0.7. Please fix it. Thanks!

Comment 4

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> This serious shortcoming is still present in Firefox 1.0.7. Please fix it. Thanks!

This is not a shortcoming in Firefox but is a serious shortcoming in the design
of their web site which is why this is a Tech Evangelism bug. See
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tech-evangelism/ for more details. 

Ask them to use the proper means of accessing the form 

document.forms[0].submit()

Comment 5

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

It appears that the site no longer exists at either links presented by the reporter. Closing as INVALID.