Develop Reference

Javascript Auto Form submission not working

I have following simple HTML Form & i tried to submit the form automatically during page load.
Below Javascript code is not automatically submitting the form.
HTML :
<form action="SSL.php" method="POST" name="TForm" id="transactionForm">
<input type="hidden" name="merchantTxnId" id="merchantTxnId" value="test">
<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="submit" style="visibility:hidden">
</form>
Redirecting ... Please wait...
Java script:
<script>
window.onload = function(){
alert(1); // this is working..
document.getElementById("transactionForm").submit(); //nothing is happening with this line . form is not getting submitted
}
</script>
I found following error in Chrome console mode says:
Kindly suggest me where the problem is...

You may not use submit as the name or id of any of your form elements.
The reason is, that you can reach each child of your form via document.getElementById('form').nameOfTheChild where nameOfTheChild is the name of the child. If you have a child with the name submit, document.getElementById('form').submit is a shortcut to address that child.
The documentation of .submit() says that :
Forms and their child elements should not use input names or ids that
conflict with properties of a form, such as submit, length, or method.
Name conflicts can cause confusing failures.

ie javascript form submit with file input

I have a html form, with a custom file upload field. And by that I mean that I have moved the actual file field beyond the borders of the page with css, that I have a custom input field and button in place, and that I have a jquery click event attached to that custom button to trigger the file input dialog.
It all works fine, in every browser.
But I need to submit the form through javascript. And I got somewhere that IE remembers my actions with javascript as a malicious manipulation of the file input field and blocks my access with an error "access denied" when I invoke document.formName.submit().
Is there a way around this, because I have gone completely mad by trying to search for a solution. I seriously don't want to use the default file input field, as every browsers renders it differently and messes up my design..
code:
<form name="thisForm" onsubmit="return false;" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" action="index.cfm/somepage">
<input type="file" class="hidden" name="hidden" id="hidden" />
<input type="text" name="shown" id="shown" />
<button id="button">browse..</button>
<input type="submit" id="submitForm" />
</form>
<script>
$('button').click(function(){
$('#shown').val($('#hidden').val());
});
$('submitForm').click(function(){
validateForm();
});
function validateForm()
{
//regular expression validation against all other input fields in the form
//not the file input field
validateVAT();
}
function validateVAT()
{
//connect to external service to check VAT
submitForm();
}
function submitForm()
{
document.thisForm.submit();
}
</script>
UPDATE:
I just tried to first upload the file, before submitting the form, through ajax, but that also gave me the acces denied error.. >_>

I was having the same problem, and I solved it by using a styled <label> tag with a slight workaround in Firefox.
http://jsfiddle.net/djibouti33/uP7A9/
The Goals:
allow user to upload a file by using standard html file input control
hide standard html file input control and apply own styling
after user selects file to upload, automatically submit the form
The Browsers:
Firefox, Chrome, IE8/9, Safari
IE7 didn't work, but it might if you add it to the workaround detailed below.
The Initial Solution:
Hide the file input by positioning it offscreen. Important not to display:none as some browsers won't like this.
Add another styled element to the page (link, button).
Listen for a click on that element, then programmatically send a click to the file input to trigger the native 'file explorer'
Listen for the file input's onchange event (occurs after a user chooses their file)
Submit the form
The Problem:
IE: if you programmatically send a click to a file input in order to activate it (2), programmatically submitting the form (5) will throw a security error
The Workaround Solution:
Same as above
Take advantage of the accessibility features built in to the label tag (clicking on a label will activate it's associated control) by styling
a label tag instead of a link/button
Listen for the file input's onchange event
Submit the form
For some reason Mozilla browsers won't activate a file input by clicking on it's label.
For Mozilla, listen for the click on the label and send a click event to the file input to activate it.
Hope this helps! Check out the jsfiddle for details on the html/js/css used to make it all work.

I found the answer myself, After 2 days of crazy trial&error. I hope I can help somebody with this..
I removed the hidden file input field from my coldfusion page and replaced it by an iframe tag. That iframe tag linked to another coldfusion page, containing another form with the removed file input field.
Now when I use javascript to click the file input field, which is still hidden from view, it still gives the browse file dialog without a hitch. But when I use javascript to submit the form, through the iframe, miraculously, it submits the form in the iframe, making it possible to upload the file in some serverside scripting of your preference.
iframe code:
<form id="formFileUpload" class="formFileUpload" name="formFileUpload" method="post" action="../actions/act_upload_file.cfm" autocomplete="off" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="file" class="buttonFileHidden" id="inputFile" name="partnersLogo" />
</form>
iframe itself:
<iframe src="admin/dsp_file_upload.cfm" id="ifu" name="ifu" class="buttonFileHidden">
</iframe>
javascript click & submit:
ifu.document.formFileUpload.partnersLogo.click();
ifu.document.formFileUpload.submit();

If you're like me, and you don't want to use an iframe, and you weren't too keen on the label solution mentioned above, you can just position the original button above the styled button with an opacity of 0.
Using the example above, you would still have:
<input type="file" class="hidden" name="hidden" id="hidden" />
<input type="button" name="shown" id="shown" value="Add File" />
But .hidden would be defined like so:
.hidden {
position: absolute;
left: -150px;
opacity: 0;
filter: alpha(opacity=0);
}
Config: Set the opacity to 0.5 (or =50) to see the transparent element and tweak the left positioning.
Arguably just as hacky as the answers above, but a bootstrap-friendly solution, and in my case, the only one that worked.

I found a weird solution to solve this problem.
It thought about the js click thread. If it goes out of this thread, there no more security issues.
I chose to use window.setTimeout. see sample below:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function () {
$("#<%= this.fuDoc.ClientID %>").bind('change', uploadFile);
$("#<%= this.btnUpload.ClientID %>").click(chooseFile);
});
function chooseFile() {
$("#<%= this.fuDoc.ClientID %>").click();
}
function uploadFile() {
var fu = $("#<%= this.fuDoc.ClientID %>");
if (fu.val() != "") {
window.setTimeout(function () {
<%= this.ClientScript.GetPostBackEventReference(this.btnUpload, "") %>;
}, 100);
}
}
</script>
<asp:FileUpload ID="fuDoc" runat="server" style="display: none;" />
<asp:Button runat="server" ID="btnUpload" Text="upload" OnClick="btnUpload_Click" />
<asp:Label ID="lbltext" Text="" runat="server" />`
then, no more acces denied!

This is an old post but the problem still arises. This may not be working because jQuery kindly fails silently. I was having this problem and wondering why my hidden form would not submit and the file get uploaded. I started off by using jQuery, but then I went vanilla. It still didn't work but looked as though an exception was being thrown in my .click() function.
Running
try {
document.getElementById('formid').submit();
} catch (e) {
alert(e);
}
showed that we indeed were throwing an error, and quick research showed that this was because IE DOES NOT SUPPORT SIMULATED CLICKS ON A FILE INPUT. This means that when the form went to be posted, IE would refuse to post the form
Excuse the bold caps, but I know many people will see text and not read it

Have you tried
$('button').click(function(){
$('form[name=thisForm]').submit()
});

You need to change onsumbit='return false;' to onsubmit='return validateForm()'.
Then have validateForm() return true if the form passes your validation checks, or false if it does not.
The onsubmit='return false' is preventing the form from submitting via document.thisForm.submit(); as well as when the user clicks the submit button.

I commented these lines in j query.form.js then every thing works fine for me. Don't ask me the reason even i don't have the solution for that but it works for sure.
if (io.contentWindow.document.execCommand) {
try { // #214
io.contentWindow.document.execCommand('Stop');
} catch(ignore) {}
}

Can't call Form element in Firefox

I'm having trouble not being too familiar with how to debug such problems. In my HTML lets say I have a form:
<form name="myForm" >
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<input type="radio" name="myType" value="val" onclick="someFunc(this.value)"checked > stuff here
<input type="radio" name="myType" value="val2" onclick="someFunc(this.value)"> stuff2 here
</td>
..
</form>
In Javascript code, I am referencing this by:
myForm.myType[0].checked
In IE this works fine, but not in Firefox. In Firefox I tried:
alert (myForm)
and also:
if (frmDateType == null)
{
alert('null!');
}
else
{
alert('not null!');
}
However, in both these cases Firefox doesn't even display an alert, it is basically doing nothing though it is fine in IE. I have installed Firebug and it doesn't show any errors (or at least I can't find them). So I'm not sure how to debug such an issue, why I don't see any errors and why Firefox doesn't like MyForm? Any tips?

You are assuming that anything with a name attribute will get a global variable that matches. This is non-standard behaviour.
You shouldn't be giving forms name attributes anyway, see the specification:
Note. This attribute has been included for backwards compatibility. Applications should use the id attribute to identify elements.
So, first replace the name attribute with an id.
<form id="myForm">
And then you can access the form via:
document.getElementById('myForm')
or
document.forms.myForm

I'm not sure as to why your Firefox is not displaying any alert; but you should check the Firefox Error Console. Simply click in your address bar and press the Alt key on your keyboard to highlight the system menu; under Tools -> Web Developer -> Web Console you will be able to see all JavaScript, HTML and CSS errors encountered on the page at load time..
--
Please make sure you are referencing the form currectly in JavaScript:
myForm = document.getElementById("myForm"); // This requires the form to have an id.
Alternatively, you can reference the form using its name (not always works!)
myForm = document.forms.myForm;

Submit Form Without Javascript

I have a form that relies on javascript to do all the client side form validation. The form is submitted via javascript if all the fields are correctly filled in as opposed to using a standard "submit" button:
<button name="button" type=button onclick="validateReqFields('mForm', 'username, password, compPassword, firstName, lastName');">Register</button>
document[formName].submit();
If the client has javascript disabled, all of the form validation is done server side (its actually performed again regardless but that doesn't really matter). The problem lies with using a button with a type of button instead of submit. It works perfect with javascript, but how do I get around this when javascript is not available? If I use a submit button along with the javascript then it submits the form with each button press and doesn't work properly.

Use a submit button instead of the "button" button, and then have your validateReqFields function return false if the form is not valid.
Then take out the form submit from the validateReqFields if you like.
This way
If the form is valid, then the button click will bubble and the form will submit
If the form is invalid, then the javascript will cancel the button click
If javascript is disabled, then it will be submitted to the server as a fallback

Change the type attribute to submit.
<button name="button" type="submit" ... />

Use the <noscript></noscript> tags to define a "normal" submit-button when javascript is disabled.

You could maybe use the <noscript> tag and encapsulate the above code with the button type as submit. If the client has js, the code inside the noscript will be ignored.

Getting inputs to auto-complete/suggest when preventing default form behavior

Interesting bug here that seems to be limited to IE and Webkit.
I have a basic form setup:
<div id="output">Form output is displayed here</div>
<form id="myForm" action="#" method="post">
<input type="text" name="username" id="usernameInput" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
Now if I just submit the form through a normal page refresh, the next time I go to type text into the input field, I will get the browser's default auto-suggest dropdown (this is the intended behavior). However, if I highjack the form submission behavior in order to do an AJAX submit:
$('#myForm').submit(function () {
$('#output').text($('usernameInput').val());
return false;
});
Now when I submit the form, the output div updates, but the previous values that I input into the form aren't stored and no suggestions will be made when you type.
Does anyone have any creative solutions to this problem? Maybe an (gulp) iframe?

IE and WebKit only remember values that were submitted normally, and since you are submitting it through AJAX, those engines do not remember the values. Instead of an iframe, I would use a jQuery plugin for the autocomplete, like this one. Of course, with that solution, you will need to maintain a listing of what a user has typed in the past, which shouldn't be too hard.

test with these modifications in controlling submit:
$('#myForm').submit(function (e) {
e.stopPropagation();
$('#output').html($("#usernameInput").val() + "<br />");
});