Rollover Submit Image

HTML allows us to use images to create submit buttons for forms. Unfortunately, creating a rollover submit image can be a little more tricky. The technique described here allows you to create a rollover submit image using a script which does most of the work for you.

Suppose we want to use these two images to make a submit rollover. The first is the image which is displayed when the mouse is not over the image, the second when the mouse is over the image.

submit.out.gif
submit.over.gif

First, copy this script into your page. Copy as-is without changing anything:

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
<!--
// copyright 1999-2001 Idocs, Inc. http://www.idocs.com/tags/
// Distribute this script freely, but keep this 
// notice with the code.
var submitRolls = new Object();
function submitroll(src, oversrc, name)
{
this.src=src;
this.oversrc=oversrc;
this.name=name;
this.alt="Submit Query";
this.write=submitroll_write;
}
function submitroll_write()
{
var thisform = 'document.forms[' + (document.forms.length - 1) + ']';
submitRolls[this.name] = new Object();
submitRolls[this.name].over = new Image();
submitRolls[this.name].over.src = this.oversrc;
submitRolls[this.name].out = new Image();
submitRolls[this.name].out.src = this.src;
document.write
(
'<A onMouseOver="if (document.images)document.images[\'' + this.name + "'].src=submitRolls['" + this.name + '\'].over.src"' + 
' onMouseOut="if (document.images)document.images[\'' + this.name + "'].src=submitRolls['" + this.name + '\'].out.src"' + 
' HREF="javascript:'
);
if (this.sendfield)
{
if (! this.sendvalue)
this.sendvalue = 1;
document.write(thisform, ".elements['", this.sendfield, "'].value='", this.sendvalue, "';");
}
document.write(thisform + '.submit();void(0);"');
if (this.msg)document.write(' onClick="return confirm(\'' , this.msg, '\')"');
document.write('>');
document.write('<IMG SRC="' + this.src + '" ALT="' + this.alt + '" BORDER=0 NAME="' + this.name + '"');
if (this.height)document.write(' HEIGHT=' + this.height);
if (this.width)document.write(' WIDTH='  + this.width);
if (this.otheratts)document.write(' ' + this.otheratts);
document.write('></A>');
if (this.sendfield)
{
document.write('<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="' + this.sendfield + '">');
document.forms[document.forms.length - 1].elements[this.sendfield].value='';
}
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>

Next, create a form like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

<FORM ACTION="../cgi-bin/mycgi.pl"> email: <INPUT NAME="email"> <SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">  </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Go!"> </NOSCRIPT> </FORM>

which gives us this form:

Most of the form is as normal. Where we would have put the submit button we put some JavaScript instead. Our script has only two commands.

The first command at line 6 creates a new submitroll() object and takes three parameters. The first parameter ("submit.out.gif") sets the source for the image which is displayed when the mouse is not over. The second parameter ("submit.over.gif") sets the source for the image which is displayed when the mouse is over. The last parameter ("mysubmit") gives the image a nickname which is used by the script.

The next command at line 7 writes out the HTML and JavaScript to create the image.

We follow the script with a short <NOSCRIPT> element for browsers which don't have JavaScript.

This technique covers all the bases, creating a rollover submit image without a lot of hassle. In the next page we'll discuss a few optional settings you can add to the script.