Advice Phil Karras (PK) Try this: comment each line of your script so you can see later (when you are debugging it) what you are trying to do. For beginners this can be a BIG help if you actually READ what you wrote. This is also a big help to those of use who do this for a living. Believe me, you will NOT remember why you did what you did three months from now. Trying to add or fix something like that is a very big pain if there are no comments to help you remember (or understand for the first time) what is supposed to happen. I commonly take over projects with no or little documentation. Debugging in this kind of situation is very time consuming because I have to brake things further to try and understand why things were done the way they were and what they do. Anyway, good luck and enjoy! Next, consider buying a book or two on the language you're trying to learn. When you ask a question like, "I have it working on IE browsers but it does not work on NS browsers, why?" then those of us who try to help have to look it up, unless we know the reason off the top of our heads. So skip the middle man, buy a book or two, spend the time, and look it up yourself. The advantage here is that you gain the knowledge and youmay come across a number of other interesting things along the way that will help later on. Then you can give advice as well! ----- Hints: Debugging and Programming Phil Karras (PK) http://www.jsworkshop.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=721 Ah yes, error messages. I've got over 30 yrs experience working with compilers and debuggers. The one for JavaScript reminds me of what we started with. So, if you're not an old guy you'll be forever frustrated by the lack of clarity and accuracy of the JS debuggers available. Personally I never use the things. Having grown up without them I find them all but useless (most of the time.) Normally I can find the bug without them, and when I can't and I try a debugger, it fails as well. So, here's my advice: 1. Start looking for a syntax error 1st 2. Start at the line where the debugger says the error is and then go backwards. (This is because the debugger sometimes doesn't realize there is an error until it comes to the close of a section, function, brace, whatever. By then you could be pages away from the real cause of the error message.) 3. [b]ALWAYS [/b]keep the last working un-modified version so you can compare. THIS and this alone is one of the BIGGEST and best help/debugging methods around. Believe me, this one will save your butt more times than you'll ever want to admit! 4. Remember, the last section modified IS the section in which the error resides! ALWAYS is, no matter What the debugger says! 5. Make your changes in small increments so it's easier to find your errors. 6. Test ideas out in standard html FIRST, then convert them to JS. 7. Keep your functions as small as possible. They are easier to test/debug that way. Once they are clean you can use them elsewhere. 8. Make a library of useful JS functions that have been debugged. 9. Debugger messages may have nothing to do with the real cause of the error. I hope this helps, good-luck. Hints: On considerate Questions Phil Karras (PK) http://www.jsworkshop.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=756 OK, gripe time! You are not the only one that has done this, but why do you people all assume that we who are willing to help have all the time in the world and even have all of YOUR stuff? WE DON'T! So, if we need more files why not comment your code to tell us where we will need to use our own files? I don't have any of your files I only have what you've posted. I don't know how many people I've helped where I've had to fix the example code to get it running the way the problem is described before I can start working on the problem. Did you even bother to check that the code you sent really worked? It doesn't by the way. This is VERY inconsiderate of you and before I continue to help please post code that actually works the way you have explained your problem. Hints: OK, you have a problem, and it's in this very large file. This first thing you need to do is cut it down to the basics. Make all the needed files as small as possible to just show the one problem you are having. Make sure you include all the files needed and tell us what to name them. If you use images as click-ons then also modify your code to include: alt="Click Here" as in: [code] [Click Here] [/code] Since we will [b]NOT[/b] have your images we won't have anything to click on unless [b]you[/b] make sure we do. Last, and by no means least, [b]PLEASE[/b] make sure the code you are posting actually works the way you say it does. Move it to a new subdirectory and try it out. When you have it working to show the problem, then post it. Yes, I know this sounds like a good deal of work, however consider those of us who help out of our "spare" time. If you do NOT do these things, then either we have to or we don't bother with helping you. Again, this slows us down and we can only answer so many questions due to limited time. If you slow us down we can't help someone else or we have to choose between trying to get your code to do what you say it does, or helping someone else who has made it easy for us. Who do you think you would help? ----------------------------------------- JavaScript Questions Hints: On considerate Questions Phil Karras (PK) Beginner's take note: 1. We KNOW you are a beginner so STOP telling us so. 2. Place the problem in the title of your thread post We do NOT need some junk like, "I'm a beginner in JavaScript, Please help!!!!" The main reasons for telling us something like, "Having form validation problem" is that 1. It tells us right off what the problem is so we can figure out if we can or want to help without having to read the whole posting. 2. It makes it easier for others to find a similar problem so they don't have to ask the same question over, and over, and over, and over, - you get the idea, again. Help me Help you! I'll help if I can but you need to make it easy for me. You must do most of the work, why should I spend all my free time on your project? (Unless you want me too and then you need to hire me as a consultant.) If you do most of the work so I can simply work on a small piece of code that shows the problem then that makes it much easier for me. If I have to guess as to what the problem is, or cut up a large file into a small one with just your problem I'm not going to do it. You are not the only person asking for my help and this is not the only site I help with and I'm not going to spend my time if you don't make it easy for me. Make a small file that has the problem you want solved. If all your frames, inputs, rollovers, or whatevers don't work in NS or IE or at all then I don't need them all, I don't need a 5 Meg page, I only need one example of the non-working item. So make a new page with the one problem in it [b]AND TEST IT OUT BEFORE YOU POST IT TO ME.[/b] Be sure it has ONLY the one problem we're looking for. (Help me here so I don't have to fix three other problems before I get it working to show your problem.) Once I find the solution YOU program it in for all the rest of the problem areas. So as I said, help me help you. (Or do it yourself.) (And "me" here stands for any one of the many people who donate their time, knowledge, and skill at finding your problems, FOR FREE.) I've said this before but here it goes again, once you start trying to make that small file, you just might solve your own problem. This is a very good debugging technique. For other debugging techniques check out: Hints: Debugging and Programming http://www.jsworkshop.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=721