Is it possible to keep the default HTML validation if submitting via Javascript?
What I mean is that, if I submit a form using this JS method:
document.getElementById("mc-embedded-subscribe-form").submit();
How do I keep the defualt error messages thrown by the browser?
One workaround I thought of is using this:
<form onSubmit="return somefunction()">
But because the API returns the success inside a closure function, I can't use this method.
HTML5 has also specified a JS API that you can use to interact with forms/elements in regard to their validation status: https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/forms.html#the-constraint-validation-api
So the easiest way to achieve this would be to call the checkValidity method of your form, and only submit it when this returns true.
Something like this:
function submitIfValid() {
var form = document.getElementById("mc-embedded-subscribe-form");
if(form.checkValidity()) {
form.submit();
}
else {
//
}
}
and then you would just call that function when you want to trigger form submission.
according to my understanding of your question, html validation is not enough to halt submission, you have to validate required inputs in javascript too before submitting.
e.g
if (!empty(username)) {
document.getElementById("mc-embedded-subscribe-form").submit();
}
You do not need to use form.submit() ever. Do it properly (onsubmit), or use click() on the submit button.
Doing it properly...
I can't think of a good reason to automatically submit a visible form. To submit data without user-interaction use XMLHttpRequest or WebSockets.
A form is submitted by user interaction (e.g. pressing its submit button), so there is no need to use JavaScript to submit a form. It is more likely that you need JavaScript to prevent a form submission, by returning false in the onsubmit event handler.
...or use click()
To programatically invoke HTML5 validation (and also any JavaScript onsubmit event handlers attached to the form), you can call the click() function of a submit button that belongs to the form.
If the form has no submit button, you can create a temporary one:
var form = document.getElementById("mc-embedded-subscribe-form");
var button = document.createElement('input');
button.type = 'submit';
button.style.display = 'none';
form.appendChild(button);
button.click();
Forms with multiple submit buttons should each have name attributes so the server can detect which button the user clicked. You can 'click' these buttons using form.buttonName.click().
form attribute
this solution avoids javascript, let's say that #my-btn is a button outside the form #mc-embedded-subscribe-form, you could just set on it
<button id="my-btn" type="submit" form="mc-embedded-subscribe-form">Go!</button>
requestSubmit()
with vanilla javascript you could call requestSubmit()
const form = document.getElementById('mc-embedded-subscribe-form');
form.requestSubmit();
the hackish solution
you could put an hidden submit button in the form and then trigger the click event on it
<form id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form">
<button id="real-btn" type="submit" style="visibility: hidden"></button>
</form>
<button id="my-btn">Go!</button>
const btn = document.getElementById('my-btn');
const btn_real = document.getElementById('real-btn');
btn.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
btn_real.click();
});
I have a jquery bug that I cant solve - hoping for help with a solution. Dont know if it is browser bug related (probably not), jQuery related, or Yii (our backend) related - but I need to try to solve it with the jQuery portion. Code at bottom of message.
Requirement: Disable accidental double submissions on forms.
Current Solution: Check for form submission state through a delegate and when the DOM form state changes to submit - append the disable attribute to the form submit button to prevent accident double form submission.
jQuery double click disabler:
$( document ).ready(function() {
$('html').delegate('form', 'submit', function() {
$(this).find(':submit').attr('disabled', true);
});
});
Problem: This works perfectly on every part of the CRM we are developing EXCEPT for a single timekeeper (clock in/clock out) feature. With the timekeeper the form has two submit buttons (one for clock in, one for clock out). Only one submit button shows at a time (Either "In" or "Out". When you click the button - it submits the form and changes the submit button to the other state by checking a session var to determine what state it is in and determines which of the two submit buttons are to be displayed. Problem is if you click it, the form appears to submit, but the state don't change. If you click it really fast a few times you can get it to change state. I suspect this is a timing or order of operations issue, but I have no idea how to fix it. The fix MUST be done on the front end, so here is the code (both the PHP being impacted and jQuery double click prevention). Perhaps a different method of disabling double submissions may work, please post your solution if you have one to try. Commenting out the current jQuery allows the form to function as designed. What might be causing this, and how might I change the jQuery double click prevention to solve it?
On page PHP for the time clock:
<form action = "<?=$clockUrl?>" method = "post" >
<input type = "hidden" name = "previousUrl" value = "<?=$currentUrl?>">
<?php if ($sessionVar->timeclockin) {?>
<input type = "submit" name = "submit-clockout" value = "Out">
<class="clock-time" ><?=$sessionVar->timeclockin?></class="clock-time">
<?php } else {?>
<input type = "submit" name = "submit-clockin" value = "In">
<?php }?>
</form>
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction Tyler! I was able to fix the issue with the following alteration to my script.
function do_nothing() {
console.log("click prevented");
return false;
}
$('html').delegate('form', 'submit', function(e) {
$(e.target).find(':submit').click(do_nothing);
setTimeout(function(){
$(e.target).unbind('click', do_nothing);
}, 10000);
});
Update 1:
If you are looking to prevent the button from being pressed twice then inside of your onclick or submit function, you should use something similar to the following:
$('#yourButton').prop('disabled', true);
If the page then redirects then you won't have to undo this. If it does, then do the opposite by changing true to false.
The submit function should instead disable the submit button until it either returns or fails.
An alternative is to use a lambda style function and replace it temporarily with an empty function until the request returns or fails.
I want to prevent multiple form submissions, but I need to have the value of the submit element posted back to the server (so that I know which button the user clicked on).
Most of the Internet Wisdom concerning suppression of multiple form submissions seems to involve disabling the submit button during form submission. This prevents the button from being clicked a second time, but also prevents its value from being posted.
I've found a few examples of JS code that hides the submit button(s), which allows their values to be posted. But those examples all replace the (now hidden) button with some sort of "processing..." message. I really want a solution that presents the user with a disabled button but still posts the button value.
I should add that I'd prefer a solution that works with standard HTML one would find in most forms. No magic IFrames, hidden fields, id or class names, etc. I want a JS function I can stash away in a library and reference from all of my existing forms to enable this new behavior.
(I have a solution, which I will post as an answer. But I had to ask the question to comply with the Zen of SO.)
Here is (yet another) answer to the question of how to deal with preventing the user from clicking on the form submission button more than once. This solution makes it appear that the button has been disabled.
Under the covers, it creates a disabled button to display to the user, and hides the actual button so that its value is posted. I also move the hidden button so that the extra element doesn't mess up CSS selectors.
Also note the check for invalid form fields. If you omit this check, and form validation fails, then the user winds up with a form that wasn't posted (because client-side validation failed) but the buttons are disabled.
// Disables buttons when form is submitted
$('form').submit(function () {
// Bail out if the form contains validation errors
if ($.validator && !$(this).valid()) return;
var form = $(this);
$(this).find('input[type="submit"], button[type="submit"]').each(function (index) {
// Create a disabled clone of the submit button
$(this).clone(false).removeAttr('id').prop('disabled', true).insertBefore($(this));
// Hide the actual submit button and move it to the beginning of the form
$(this).hide();
form.prepend($(this));
});
});
Because you can submit a form other ways than simply clicking the submit button it's better to add a listener to the form's submit event rather than the click event on the submit button. This jQuery event listener should work on any form and prevent it from being submitted more than once.
$('form').on('submit', function(e) {
if (!$(this).data('submitted')) {
$(this).data('submitted', true);
}
else {
e.preventDefault();
}
});
To make the form look disabled you could add some css that makes the form look disabled and then add the classname on form submission.
$('form').on('submit', function(e) {
if (!$(this).data('submitted')) {
$(this).data('submitted', true).addClass('disabled');
}
else {
e.preventDefault();
}
});
I wanted to stop the user from causing multiple form submissions by double clicking the submit button or hitting the enter key twice. I like this solution, because it doesn't require a hidden form field or hiding the submit button.
The two key points are:
Return true/false instead of using e.preventDefault() and form.submit(), because form.submit() doesn't know which button was clicked and therefore, can't pass the button name/value.
Disable the button with pointer-events: none; instead of disabled="disabled", because the disabled attribute won't send the button name/value. I believe pointer-events: none; is not supported by Internet Explorer 10 or below.
javascript/jquery code:
var form_selector = 'form',
button_selector = 'button, input[type=submit], input[type=button], input[type=reset]',
deactivated_classname = 'state-submitting',
deactivated_class = '.'+'state-submitting';
// Capture the submit event so it will handle both the
// enter key and clicking the submit button.
$(document).on('submit', form_selector, function(e) {
var form = e.target,
buttons = $( form ).find( button_selector );
// Returns, because the form is already being submitted by a previous attempt.
if( $( form ).find( deactivated_class ).length > 0 ) return false;
disableButtons( buttons );
// Safari (version 11) bugfix: Safari needs a timeout or it won't
// show the deactivated styles.
setTimeout(function() {
// Must use return true, because using form.submit(), won't pass the button value.
return true;
}, 50 );
});
function disableButtons( buttons ) {
// Disables all buttons in the form.
$( buttons ).each(function( index, elem ) {
$( elem ).addClass( deactivated_classname );
});
}
For AJAX forms, you will want to re-enable the buttons after the response is returned.
$( document ).on( 'ajax:complete', form_selector, function(e) {
var form = e.target,
buttons = $( form ).find( button_selector );
enableButtons( buttons );
});
function enableButtons( buttons ) {
$( buttons ).each(function( index, elem ) {
$( elem ).removeClass( deactivated_classname );
});
}
CSS:
// The button is disabled while it is submitting.
.state-submitting {
// Turns off hover and click events. Not supported in IE 10 and below.
pointer-events: none;
opacity: 0.5;
}
You can simulate disabled look behavior. E.g. if you have a button like this:
<input id="btn" type="button" onclick="disableMe(this)" value="Submit" />
You can define CSS like this
.disabled {
backround-color:grey;
color:darkgrey;
}
And JS like this
function disableMe(btn) {
btn.className = "disabled";
btn.onclick = function(){return false}
}
What will happen - on first click button will become grey (via applied CSS) and onclick event will change to "return false" for all the consecutive calls preventing future click actions. The button will appear and act as disabled, but will not be, so it will not prevent button submission.
Here's a couple options:
1. You could create hidden inputs and dynamically change the value of it before the form is submitted either onClick or onHover of the said button:
2. You could create an hidden iframe which is the target of the said form. Once the submit button is click, you could cancel the submit event, grab all of the data and send it programatically through the iframe instead.
I was having the same issue as OP, and I found that disabling the submit button(s) after a short (maybe 0 seconds) timeout via setTimeout does the trick. The submit button's name value is still posted with the rest of the form data as desired, but the button disables itself (almost) immediately, preventing further clicks.
The timeout is a bit ugly, but it seems preferable to more elaborate swapping/covering schemes.
This could be combined with also altering the form's onsubmit property for extra precaution, but I'm not doing that in the example below for clarity's sake. Either way, I like the appearance/behavior of a disabled button after the first submission click… the user experience seems better to me… it's more clear what's happening.
My form element's start tag:
<form onsubmit="return formSubmit(this);" method="post" action="">
In my JavaScript (sorry, I'm not up-to-date with the latest JS tech like jQuery, etc, so I'm posting this in old-fashioned-native-JavaScript-5-with-no-dependencies-compatible code):
function formSubmit(form) {
// MUST DELAY so as not to break input/button[type=submit] name submission
setTimeout(function () {
var els = form.elements;
for (var i = 0; i < els.length; i++) {
var el = els[i];
if (el.getAttribute('type') == 'submit') {
el.setAttribute('disabled', 'disabled');
}
}
}, 0);
return true;
}
I think better solution would be to use JQuery :
<form onsubmit="$('#submit').hide();" method="post" action="">
No chance of double clicking.
Sometimes we use name field in submit button for validation so if this is disabled then that could failed.
Using .hide() the button will be hidden.
so no chance of double clicking it.
Be honest with you I was not able to understand fully most of the posts on this page, but I think I have faced this problem before, and solved it by allowing the page to post the first time the button is clicked, so when the page comes back from server it has the new value assigned to it, and it looks clickable, and enabled. But if a 2nd attempt is made to press it, then it becomes disabled, and page will not post, and send to the server again by clicking this button. I hope this helps:
#section scripts
{
<script type="text/javascript">
$('#edit').click(function () {
if (document.getElementById("edit").value == '') {
// This portion should execute onlythe
// first time button is clicked, and it
// will assign a new value to the button,
//and posts the value
//to the server
}
else {
edit.disabled = true;
}
});
</script>
}
A much much much simpler way is to enclose whatever code you use to disable the button in a setTimeout() with 0 delay. That way the button is still enabled in the thread that handles the form submission while another parallel thread is spawned to do the disabling.
Example (using jQuery):
<form method="POST" onsubmit="javascript:setTimeout(() => $('*[type=submit]', this).attr('disabled', 'disabled'), 0)">
I AM NOT TRYING TO SUBMIT A FORM USING JAVASCRIPT!!" The above remark is misleading, inappropriate and confused
I have a html form that contains several elements (all with unique #id) which when clicked using the mouse correctly submits the form with the action=value pair.
<html><body><form id="frm-table" name="frm-table" method=get>
<!-- the form has an action url to call php script that interprets passed values and serves new dynamic page -->
<!-- #20140820 - #id and #name added to form -->
<button id="cancel-btn" type="submit" name="action" value="cancel"><img src="http://foo.localhost/img/cancel16.png" alt="Cancel" title="Cancel" class="btn" name="btn_c" /></button>
<!-- several other inputs eg type=text and buttons type=submit -->
</form></body>
I have a js script that captures a document ESC keydown and as example: displays an alert to confirm capture.
document.onkeydown = function(evt) {
evt = evt || window.event;
var node = (evt.target) ? evt.target : ((evt.srcElement) ? evt.srcElement : null);
if (evt.keyCode == 27) {
if (document.getElementById('cancel-btn') != null) {
// alert('Esc key pressed.'); //just to test capturing ESC key - OK
// testing suggestion 201408211700
document.getElementById('frm-table').action = 'http://foo.localhost/index.php?page=bg'
document.getElementById('frm-table').submit(); //suggestion does not work - form not submitted
// document.getElementById('cancel-btn').click(); //original does not work
}
evt.returnValue=false;
}
if ((evt.keyCode == 13) && (node.type=="text")) {return false;}
};
When the alert is replaced by a .click() nothing happens.
I do not understand why the native click event is not firing.
I am aware there is no click event on a button element, however it does accept and action a mouseclick on it. Calling a function to submit the form (by adding a listener event to the button does not work - it submits the form but the posted values do not include the button action=value pair.
So is there another js command to trigger the button element''s native functionality? Is important to note that the button is one of several type=submit buttons all of which give a different action-value pair.
[Ed] In an attempt to clarify:
I am not trying to add a handler to the button element just trying to replicate the native type=submit function of the button. (mouse clicking the button submits the form with the important action=value pair without any js)
I only have the option of adding javascript at my disposal not changing the dynamic generation of the page as it is part of a much larger application.
So although I thank those who have responded, the answers, so far, they do not resolve the question.
Tested in Firfox31 and IE9
That is because the <button> does not have an onclick handler on it, so it won't be triggered.
Instead of
document.getElementById('cancel-btn').click();
you can just do
document.forms[0].reset();
which will also reset the form.
Unless the button that is called cancel-btn actually has to submit the form in which case you need:
document.forms[0].submit();
I'm working on a web project that has a lot of abstraction - lots of code is squirreled away in view templates, internal company javascript libraries, etc.
I have been asked to "hijack" the form submit buttons to disable them when the form is submitted, to disallow extra clicks. The problem is, I still have to submit the button as it's used in 99% of our system as a form input (not best practices, but I didn't write that code!)
What I have done is when the user clicks "Save," that button is hidden using jQuery and an exact duplicate that is disabled with a spinner icon is put in its place:
function showSpinningButton(button){
$(button).hide();
clone = $(button).clone();
clone.prop('disabled', true);
$(button).parent().append(clone);
clone.show();
}
This works in the standard use case, but the niche case is validation - there is no way for me to detect when the form is invalid and the button needs to be reset to standard. This is especially troublesome as all the validation is done in external-facing Javascript libraries that I am not allowed to modify.
The gist is this: is there a DOM event that is fired when a form that had been submitted is cancelled (i.e. onclick="return false;") that I could attach a handler to to reset the button?
You may use a wrapper on the validation function:
var oldHandler = form.prop("onsubmit");
form.removeProp("onsubmit").submit(function(e) {
var result = oldHandler.call(this, e);
if (result == false) {
// reset your button
}
return result;
});