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**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [February 2, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-options-onkeypress/84263 "2007-02-02T20:17:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-options-onkeypress/84263/1 "2007-02-02T20:17:16Z")
Good evening,
I am having a bit of a problem and was wondering if anyone could help me
out…
I have a form in my view, which contains a text\_area. When the user
focuses on the text area and presses a key - i would like to execute an
action - only ONCE…
I can perform these events using :onkeypress =\> remote\_function…
However, this obviously calls my funtion every time a key is pressed - i
would only like the function to be called once - is this a possibility??
any ideas of a work around??
Thanks for your time…
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**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-options-onkeypress/84263/2 "2007-02-02T20:27:14Z")
Well, from what you’ve posted, it looks like you want to use
observe\_field.
So it would go something like this:
\<%= text\_field ‘name’, ‘method’, … %\>
…
\<%= observe\_field ‘name[method]’, :url =\> {:controller … }, :update =\>
…
%\>
Check out the API docs for full usage information, but this will send an
AJAX request when the user leaves the field.
Jason
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**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2007, 11:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-options-onkeypress/84263/3 "2007-02-02T23:40:35Z")
well, one thought would be to set a flag on the first keypress.
something like
\<%= text\_area …, :onkeypress =\> “mykeypress()” -%\>