How to get ActionForm populated from disabled field.

[Jagdeep Singh]

I am using html select tag in JSP. Based on some value I set attribute "disabled" to true so that field value is not selectable but should still show default value in current context. Now the problem is that if i set field disabled, the field value is not available in ActionForm in Action. How to do handle this kind of situation in Struts.?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Jagdeep,
This is a problem in HTML in general. If a form element is disabled, the browser does not submit it's value. If you need the value, there are two choices:
1) don't disable the form element
2) write your own javascript function to set the element's value to a temporary text field and have the action set it to the form value for you

[somkiat puisungnoen]

I think, you can use hidden field to keep data for disable field.
<input type="hidden" >

[Nicholas Cheung]

I am using non-Struts tags to handle disable or display-only fields in the views, and put these fields into hidden variables.

<html:form action="xxx.do">
...
This is the disabled field: <c:out value="${requestScope.field1}"/>
<html:hidden property="field1"/>
...
</html:form>

Since the request parameter will be kept as the request parameters, and thus, you can always get it from request by EL.

Nick
[ May 18, 2004: Message edited by: Nicholas Cheung ]

[Jagdeep Singh]

Thanks to all for the information.