Use JS to populate form field with current date/time

Jaeger

I'd like to use Javascript to populate a given form field when it's mouseover'd. JS isn't really my forte, so after some tinkering, I've got this function.

function currdatetime(){
	var now = new Date();
	var dateit = now.getDate();
	var monthit = now.getMonth();
	var yearit = now.getFullYear();
	var hourit = now.getHours();
	if(hourit < 10)
		hourit = "0" + hourit;
	var minuteit = now.getMinutes();
	if(minuteit < 10)
		minuteit = "0" + minuteit;
	var secondit = now.getSeconds();

	currentdatetime = dateit + "/" + monthit + "/" + yearit + " " + hourit + ":" + minuteit + ":" + secondit;
	return currentdatetime;
	}

which works fine if I just want:

var datetimeit = currdatetime();
document.write(datetimeit);

I think I may be limited in what I can do in the onMouseOver section, so I guess

onMouseOver='javascript:document.formname.itemname.value=currdatetime();'

is a nono.

Can anyone fix where I've gone wrong here?

duffman85

change the onmouseover part to

onmouseover="currdatetime();"

then in your function replace the return statement with

document.getElementById("textboxID").value=currentdatetime;

where the textboxID is the actual ID of your textbox.

Jaeger

Had started thinking along those lines, with the exception of the getElementByID bit!

If the inputbox doesn't have an ID, just a name, will that still work tho? Doesn't so far..

duffman85

var textbox =document.getElementsByName("name");
textbox[0].value=currdatetime;

document.getElementsByName() returns an array of elements matching the name in quotes.
More info here:
http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_doc_getelementsbyname.asp

Jaeger

Thanks for the help friend. Unfortunately, not working. Am trying to get it to work with existing joomla plugin, and am coming to the conclusion it's joomla interfering with the call to the function, as that's the bit that doesn't seem to be working at all.

smcelhinney

Joomla shouldnt interfere unless it overwrite/re-declares variables. This is pure javascript, so as long as its correct in the source code, it should be fine.

you can debug using Firebug for Firefox if you think there is a javascript error, but your/duffman's code looks sound.