How do you reenable a validation control w/o it simultaneously performing an immediate validation?

When I called this function to enable a validator from client javascript:

`ValidatorEnable(document.getElementById('<%=valPassportOtherText.ClientID%>'), true); //enable`  validation control

the required validation control immediately performed it validation, found the value in the associated text box blank and set focus to the textbox (because SetFocusOnError was set to true). As a result, the side effect was that focus was shifted to the control that was associated with the Validation control, i teh example, txtSpecifyOccupation.

                          <asp:TextBox ID="txtSpecifyOccupation" runat="server" AutoCompleteType="Disabled"
                                        CssClass="DefaultTextBox DefaultWidth" MaxLength="24" Rows="2"></asp:TextBox>
                                    <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="valSpecifyOccupation" runat="server" ControlToValidate="txtSpecifyOccupation"
                                        ErrorMessage="1.14b Please specify your &lt;b&gt;Occupation&lt;/b&gt;" 
                                        SetFocusOnError="True">&nbsp;Required</asp:RequiredFieldValidator>

Perhaps there is a way to enable the (required) validator without having it simultaneously perform the validation (at least until the user has tabbed off of it?)

I'd like validation of the txtSpecifyOccupation textbox to occur only on a Page submit or when the user has tabbed of the required txtSpecifyoccupation textbox.

How can I achieve this?

Don't call the ValidatorEnable method. Instead, get a reference to teh validation control and simply set its "enabled" property as desired.

To clear the validation control's error text, set the innerText property to "".