FORM elements in DHTML Scrolling Area

I have an ASP page which is using a DHTML Scrolling text area to display an Order. It seems that the FORM elements withing this area are causing problems though. Depending where the FORM tags are placed, the page renders differently cross NN4.7 and IE5. Some of the elements have either lost their functionality, links do not work...Is there any concensus on why and where these FORM tags should be placed or where my problem may be?

I have noticed that form elements within TABLES can be very buggy across browsers/systems. Things to watch out for are overlapping styles (better to stop and start them, despite what you would think from the title - "Cascading" Style Sheets), styles set in the enclosing structural tags (better to use SPAN within table cells than setting the style in the TD, if there is more than one esp), multiple form elements in same TD, and unclosed form tags.

also, the placement of the opening and closing <FORM ACTION="" METHOD=""> and </FORM> tags can cause bugs. when possible i put these tags first and last, respectively, within the BODY and /BODY tags. often this cannot be done, however, in which case you should make sure they are not inside TABLE elements, but rather in-between them - for example, <TABLE><FORM><TR><TD></TD></TR></FORM></TABLE>. make sure they are symetrically nested.

another thing that causes inconsistent bugs with FORM elements is applying CSS to them directly, such as trying to set the font size within a text input box or some such. it can be done for some browsers/systems, but is buggy and should be checked.

hope this helps

You said the magic word - 'DHTML' - are you by chance using Nav 4 layers? Every <layer>/<ilayer> contains its own document object, and if you attempt to distribute separate form elements across these documents you'll lose all functionality. Any <form> in a Layer must be enclosed wholly in that Layer.