Setting focus on a text box on page load

Question

I have already tried the information in How do you automatically set the focus to a textbox when a web page loads?

 <asp:TextBox ID="tbSearchLastName" runat="server" style="float:right" CssClass="search" tabindex="1" meta:resourcekey="tbSearchLastNameResource" />

                        <script type="text/javascript">
                            window.onload = function () {
                                document.getElementById("tbSearchLastName").focus();
                            };
                        </script>

I want the page focus to be on the textbox when the page loads but I am getting the error:

"Unable to get value of the property 'focus': object is null or undefined"

Thanks.

Just curious, are you by chance having this problem in IE only? — vol7ron, Sep 08 '11 at 14:46
Jonathan, I'm curious if it worked in FF. IE and FF work differently in how they determine the page is loaded vs the dom being loaded. Generally when people have these problems its because they're trying to find an object that exists, just not yet. — vol7ron, Sep 08 '11 at 16:48
not the solution, I'm sure that works in most browsers. I'm curious if your problem was only in IE. — vol7ron, Sep 08 '11 at 21:04

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:36

5

You have to do like...

document.getElementById('<%= tbSearchLastName.ClientID%>').focus();

answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:36

Muhammad Akhtar

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:38

The ID you give your TextBox (or any .NET control, for that matter) is not the same ID that gets rendered in the HTML. To get the correct ID, you need to do:

 document.getElementById("<%=tbSearchLastName.ClientID %>")

Or, if you are in .NET 4, you can force it to keep the same ID

 <asp:TextBox ID="tbSearchLastName" ClientIDMode="Static" runat="server"/>

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:34

1

check in source of your page (in browser) what is the real id of tbSearchLastName. Probably it is not loaded or has been changed

answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:34

i100

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:44

1

Why don't you just put tbSearchLastName.Focus() in the code behind in the page_load method?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.control.focus.aspx

answered Sep 08 '11 at 14:44

Justin

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This did not work in my application. I tried this and even though it should work it does not. – joncodo Sep 08 '11 at 14:53

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 08 '11 at 15:35

1

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Form.DefaultFocus = "tbSearchLastName";
}

answered Sep 08 '11 at 15:35

Christian

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 10 '15 at 05:15

0

protected void Page_Load(object sender,EventArgs e){
tbSearchLastName.focus();
}

you can try this on aspx.cs file ,its simple and elegant

answered Jun 10 '15 at 05:15

Mac D'zen

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Setting focus on a text box on page load

6 Answers6