Thanks postyr. For some reason I thought I had: Another "D'Oh". By the way do you know how to get the text area colour the same as the box areas i.e yellow? It's not 'obvious' to me.

Thanks again
Byways

I tried your Contact page in five different browsers, and both of your text boxes and the text area are all the same colour as the page background (as was the message section before you changed it to a text area)

So I checked your source code again, and the colour set for all three is D9DDE6 which is indeed grey (that is the hexadecimal code, the equivalent RGB code is 217 221 230). I don’t know how you achieved that. I originally thought that you may have had full transparency, but as far as I can see, you haven’t.

It may have happened because you copied and pasted the first form item and the others inherited the settings. However, try the following.

Select each form object in turn then open the Quick Properties Editor then the Shading tab.

Either use the slide bars to adjust the colour, or enter the RGB codes directly. The code for yellow is 255 255 0

But a word of warning. I’m not quite sure (and haven’t the time to search the forum), but I think that yellow is a bad choice. From memory, I think that’s the colour that Google uses to highlight text box areas, which means that the user won’t be able to read the text. Other members know more about this.

quote:

as the box areas i.e yellow

I think those form areas are yellow because you have an auto-fill option enabled in your browser (google or yahoo toolbar does this).

Ah, that’s what it is. I remembered it was Google tool bar turning something yellow. Thanks Larry

The auto-fill option will highlight only those form fields that it recognizes (such as Name, Email, Address, and Phone Number). If you are using fields that it does not recognize (by name or label), then those fields will not be highlighted.

You can make the field background colors what you want by using CSS code. For example entering:

<style type="text/css">
input,textarea {background-color: yellow;}
</style> 

in a custom header will turn all input and textarea fields yellow. If your auto-fill setting is to use yellow fields, then they would all match.

Larry, your CSS example changes all form items, including buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, text boxes, text areas and file upload boxes.

The only things it doesn’t affect are the selection list and form image.

Yes, it will control any form input type. To control specific form elements, replace the input CSS selector with the name of the element, preceded with a "G". For example:

<style type="text/css">
#Gform1, #Gform3, textarea {background-color: yellow;}
</style>   

Much better, thank you.

Thanks larryd and postyr, for a moment I thought I'd asked a too obvious question. I've gone with the easy option, which is to use a common yellow shade.

If we are into cranking things up, you wouldn't happen to know where I might access an aussie or british spell check?

Apologies for the delay in responding, still working on the banner and logo. Seems I just need to be able to manage Gimp 2 (recommended in an earlier forum by Tonga)

byways

Don’t apologise (aussie spelling, "s" instead of "z") for delays in responding. I’ve been on line all day, but am in the process of making 42 bottles of home brew Scotch (or Whisky, Rye, Bourbon, depending on the mix). So by the time I do respond, you probably won’t understand me anyway.

As far as dictionaries go, there may be other sources, but this is the only one I’m aware of.

Thanks postyr that site looks great, and, the tricky bit, where do you place it (in the header?) and link it to the text area (a script in the text area code?)? Also I suspect the downloaded file itself needs some consideration since they are asking for it to be downloaded and opened in Win RAR.

By the way, how do age whisky into a smooth 12 year old? I recall there was a tip to age cheap rough wine by temporarily microwaving it (it affects the aldehydes). But then I always preferred the Metaxa 3 star to the exported 5 star (perhaps it was the memories that made the difference). Or is there a secret to making 'pacific' spirits?
byways

You want to spell check your form's textarea input??? And you want your visitors to use a British dictionary, no matter what part of the world they live in?

Do I detect a point of concern,larryd? The domain is .com.au therefore an aussie (and if not an aussie, a default to a very similar british) dictionary seemed in keeping. This contrasts with the Google Knol which wholly uses American English spelling. But I'm open to comment and suggestions. The point here is to help on unintentional misspellings (whatever the nationality of the writer).

Klimt has provided a new banner, and further advice on layout which I hope has been respectfully interpreted.
Byways

Initially, yes that was my concern. I understand your site is .au and a British dictionary would seem appropriate. But I assumed in your part of the world, inquiries from Indonesia and other South Pacific companies would not be out of your jurisdiction.

Another concern, by using a dictionary, are you giving your visitors the impression that you set high standards and all contacts must have proper spelling to get your notice? Are you providing the dictionary as a service for you or them? And if I were a visitor, would I be really that concerned with my spelling for a simple contact inquiry? It is my feeling that spell checking a form entry field is a user's responsibility and not a task I would place on my web page to perform.

All that being said, there are very few free spell check scripts available; most are pricey, but there are a few shareware versions. The free versions I found do not perform "as you type" spell checking and require the visitor to submit the text area to a spell check before form submission. This extra step would probably not be used by your visitor, but you could provide it as a service. I'm sure the scripts could be set up to execute on the form's onsubmit event if you desire.

You can check out the free spell checkers here.

Personally, I use Firefox which has a built-in spell checker for forms and performs "as you type" checking. Google's Chrome also has a built-in spell checker. IE users can install the free (for personal use) ieSpell add-on. And the Google Toolbar add-on for Firefox and IE provides a spell-checker.