title: How do I send textbox values to javascript function?
body: <p>I seem to be doing something wrong here. This script works with the prompts, which have been commented out, but not with the textboxes. Am I somehow failing to send the input values to the function? </p>
  
  <p>I'm also having trouble using regular expressions in the if-statements, rather than a clumsy list of punctuation marks.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;head&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
  &lt;div id="myTypingText"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;label&gt;Say what you want typed&lt;/label&gt; 
  &lt;input class="textBox" id="userInput" /&gt;
  &lt;label&gt;A pregnant pause... (300?)&lt;/label&gt;
  &lt;input type="number" id="userBreath" /&gt;
  &lt;button onclick="printLooper()" href="javascript:;"&gt;Submit&lt;/button&gt;
  &lt;! --input name="buttonExecute" onclick="execute(document.getElementById('textbox1').value)" type="button" value="Execute" --/&gt;
  &lt;script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"&gt;
  var myString = document.getElementById('userInput').value;
  //var myString = prompt('Say what you want to see typed','Right here, baby'); //prompts are annoying, i know
  //var myDelay = prompt('Type speed (try 50)', 'The higher the number, the slower it types');
  //var myBreath = prompt('Now tell me how long to pause at each breath (shift+2)', 'Try 300')
  var myBreath = document.getElementById('userBreath').value;
  var myArray = myString.split("");
  var loopTimer;
  
  function printLooper(){
    if(myArray.length &gt; 0 ){
        var char = myArray.shift();
        if ( char === '@'){
            document.getElementById("myTypingText").innerHTML
        }else {
        document.getElementById("myTypingText").innerHTML += char;
        }
    } else {
      clearTimeout(loopTimer);
    }
    if (char === ' '){
    loopTimer = setTimeout('printLooper()', 20);
    } else if (char === ',' || char === '.' || char === '?') {
    loopTimer = setTimeout('printLooper()', 220); //fiddle with these 2nd params as you see fit
    } else if (char === '@'){
    loopTimer = setTimeout('printLooper()', myBreath);
    } else {
    loopTimer = setTimeout('printLooper()', 47);
    }
  }
  printLooper(); 
  
  &lt;/script&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any help appreciated!</p>