Posted by Harlan Messinger on 08/08/06 13:09

onlystuff@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi
>
> Using the following code
>
> <form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="">
> <input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton"
> id="radiobutton" />
> <label for="radiobutton">Radio Button One</label>
>
> <input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton"
> id="radio" />
> <label for="radio">Radio Button Two</label>
>
> </form>
>
> if I preview the page in Firefox, make a selection then hit refresh,
> Firefox remembers my choice. I want it start over as if the form is
> empty and its the first time you hit the page.
>
> How can I prevent this with out using Javascript. IE is fine and
> likewise for Opera.
>
> Is IE doing the correct thing or is this a bug and Firefox is actually
> doing the right thing by remembering?

I believe the behavior is undefined, which means browsers can handle it
any way their designers find appropriate. But why should you
second-guess your users' expectations over what will happen? Assuming
they even thought about it, some would probably expect one behavior on
refresh and the others would expect the other. The real question is why
a user would be refreshing the page at all after having started filling
out the form, or why he would have an expectation either way if he did
refresh it.

If your goal is to provide users with a way to clear their entries and
start over, relying on them to guess that refreshing the page might work
isn't the way to go about it anyway. That's what the Reset button is for:

<input type="reset" name="reset" value="Reset">

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