form tag: action for javascript function

I'm getting an error in the validator from htmlhelp.com that I need a
little help with. It is telling me that the action property of the
following form is missing, and I'm not sure which action I should use.
Any suggestions?

Here is the code:

function jumpTo(URL_List){
var URL = URL_List.options[URL_List.selectedIndex].value;
window.location.href = URL;
}

<table align="center">
<tr>
<td>
<form>
<select name="nav" id="nav" onChange="jumpTo(this);">
<option value="URL" selected>URL Description</option>
<option value="URL2">URL2 Description</option>
</select>
</form>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

chadlupkes (AT) yahoo (DOT) com (Chad Lupkes) wrote:

I'm getting an error in the validator from htmlhelp.com that I need a
little help with. It is telling me that the action property of the
following form is missing, and I'm not sure which action I should use.

The purpose and meaning of the action attribute is defined in the HTML
specifications.

Any suggestions?

Don't use a "navigational dropdown menu" but a list of links, see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/navmenu.html

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

Chad Lupkes wrote:

I'm getting an error in the validator from htmlhelp.com that I need a
little help with. It is telling me that the action property of the
following form is missing, and I'm not sure which action I should use.

That is really the least of your worries. You should be more concerned
that you are using a pure-JavaScript navigation system -- something that
is inaccessible to about 5%-15% of your potential users, including one
very important one: Googlebot.

The correct way to provide links to other parts of your site is via the
humble <a> element. For example:

<a href="anotherpage.html">Another Page</a>

This will work fine in non-JS browsers and search engines.

If you really want a drop-down menu, then use server side redirection:

<form action="redir.php" method="get">
<select name="x">
<option value="http://www.yahoo.com/">Yahoo</a>
</select>
</form>

Where redir.php is a server-side script on your server that checks the
value of x and redirects the user there. This technique can be combined
with your current method to provide a speedier JavaScript-based
redirection for those whose browsers support it, but provide a fallback
through redir.php for everyone else.

As I said, this still won't let search engines spider your site properly,
so your best bet is to use proper <a> elements.

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