Develop Reference

How to get not focusable input form control by jQuery

<form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<label class="btn btn-theme">
<input type="file" name="file" value="" style="display:none;" required=""> click Me to choose file
</label>
<label class="btn btn-success">
<input type="checkbox" name="checkbox" value="yes" style="display:none;" required=""> Are You agree ?
</label>
<br>
<input type="submit" name="" value="Submit">
</form>
i want to show alert whenever user haven't selected any file or not agree and press Submit button in my given code.
right now it giving "An invalid form control with name='file' is not focusable."
I know the reason behind it but how can i alert my user that you have not selected anything.
I do not like to use Jquery Submit or show them choose file icon.
Is there any way to get that element (with help of jQuery) on which browser trying to focus ?

This other issue seems to be similar. Can you add novalidate attribute to your form? This is seen here: An invalid form control with name='' is not focusable

JQuery has a focus method that should do what you want.
Create a variable somewhere that will keep track of whether the user has clicked on an input.
var inputFocusOccured = false;
Then use the focus method to change the variable whenever a user clicks or touches an input.
$("input").focus(function(){
inputFocusOccured = true;
});
Then when the user clicks submit have it check if the value is true or false
$("#SubmitBtn").click(function() {
if(inputFocusOccured === false){
alert( "Handler for .click() called." );
}
});

Trigger parsley validation without submit form?

Given this code, it never works and always returns true whatsoever ?
<form id="my-form" data-validate="parsley">
<p>
<label for="username">Username * :</label>
<input type="text" id="username" name="username" data-required="true" >
</p>
<p>
<label for="email">Email Address * :</label>
<input type="text" id="email" name="email" data-required="true" >
</p>
<br/>
<!-- Validate all the form fields by clicking this button -->
<a class="btn btn-danger" id="validate" >Validate All</a>
</form>
<script>
var $form = $('#my-form');
$('#validate').click (function () {
if ( $form.parsley('validate') )
console.log ( 'valid' ); <-- always goes here
else
console.log ('invalid');
});
</script>
So my question is if there is a way to trigger parsley validation without adding a submit button ?

$form.parsley('validate') is 1.x API. It was deprecated in 2.x versions you might use.
Try $form.parsley().validate() instead.
Best

I've been searching high and low to try and make the form validation work with a non-form tag.
I guess my biggest gripe with the framework is that it doesn't work out-of-the-box with non-form elements.
I would be ok using a form element if it didn't scroll to the top of the page every time it tries to validate. Because this behavior is inherent in how form works, there is only this hack to fix it.
Just as a side note, using data-parsley-validate attribute on the div tag also works. You can also initialise the form as normal (meaning you can subscribe to the validation).
example html:
<div id="signupForm" data-parsley-validate>
... put form inputs here ...
<button id="signupBtn">Sign me up</button>
</div>
Just make sure to put js in:
var $selector = $('#signupForm'),
form = $selector.parsley();
form.subscribe('parsley:form:success', function (e) {
...
});
$selector.find('button').click(function () {
form.validate();
});

if you put type="button" on the button, it won't refresh and scroll to top of page when clicked.

Trigger autocomplete without submitting a form

I am writing a very simple web app with three text inputs. The inputs are used to generate a result, but all the work is done in Javascript, so there is no need to submit a form. I'm trying to find a way to get the browser to store input values for autocomplete as it would if they were in a form that was submitted.
I have tried giving the inputs autocomplete="on" manually, but without a form to submit, the browser has no way of knowing when it should store the values, so this has no effect.
I have also tried wrapping the inputs in a form that has onSubmit="return false;", but preventing the form from actually submitting appears to also prevent the browser from storing its inputs' values.
It is of course possible to manually use localStorage or a cookie to persist inputs and then generate autocomplete hints from those, but I'm hoping to find a solution that taps into native browser behavior instead of duplicating it by hand.

Tested with Chrome, IE and Firefox:
<iframe id="remember" name="remember" class="hidden" src="/content/blank"></iframe>
<form target="remember" method="post" action="/content/blank">
<fieldset>
<label for="username">Username</label>
<input type="text" name="username" id="username" value="">
<label for="password">Password</label>
<input type="password" name="password" id="password" value="">
</fieldset>
<button type="submit" class="hidden"></button>
</form>
In your Javascript trigger the submit, e.g. $("form").submit(); $("#submit_button").click() (updated from comments)
You need to return an empty page at /content/blank for get & post (about:blank didn't work for me but YMMV).

We know that the browser saves its information only when the form is submitted, which means that we can't cancel it with return false or e.preventDefault()
What we can do is make it submit the data to nowhere without reloading a page. We can do that with an iframe
<iframe name="💾" style="display:none" src="about:blank"></iframe>
<form target="💾" action="about:blank">
<input name="user">
<input name="password" type="password">
<input value="Login" type="submit">
</form>
Demo on JSfiddle (tested in IE9, Firefox, Chrome)
Pros over the currently accepted answer:
shorter code;
no jQuery;
no server-side page loaded;
no additional javascript;
no additional classes necessary.
There is no additional javascript. You normally attach an handler to the submit event of the form to send the XHR and don't cancel it.
Javascript example
// for modern browsers with window.fetch
document.forms[0].addEventListener('submit', function (event) {
fetch('login.php', {
method: 'post',
body: new FormData(event.target))
}).then(r => r.text()).then(() => { /* login completed */ })
// no return false!!
});
No-javascript support
Ideally, you should let the form work without javascript too, so remove the target and set the action to a page that will receive your form data.
<form action="login.php">
And then simply add it via javascript when you add the submit event:
formElement.target = '💾';
formElement.action = 'about:blank';

I haven't tested this, but it might work if you submit the form to a hidden iframe (so that the form is actually submitted but the current page is not reloaded).
<iframe name="my_iframe" src="about:blank"></iframe>
<form target="my_iframe" action="about:blank" method="get">...</form>

---WITHOUT IFRAME---
Instead of using iframe, you can use action="javascript:void(0)", this way it doesn't go to another page and autocomplete will store the values.
<form action="javascript:void(0)">
<input type="text" name="firstName" />
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

Maybe you can use this Twitter Typeahead...is a very complete implementation of a autocomplete, with local and remote prefetch, and this make use of localStorage to persist results and also it show a hint in the input element...the code is easy to understand and if you don't want to use the complete jquery plugin, I think you can take a look of the code to see how to achieve what you want...

You can use jQuery to persist autocomplete data in the localstorage when focusout and when focusin it autocompletes to the value persisted.
i.e.
$(function(){
$('#txtElement').on('focusout',function(){
$(this).data('fldName',$(this).val());
}
$('#txtElement').on('focusin',function(){
$(this).val($(this).data('fldName'));
}
}
You can also bind persistence logic on other events also depending on the your application requirement.

For those who would rather not change their existing form functionality, you can use a second form to receive copies of all the form values and then submit to a blank page before your main form submits. Here is a fully testable HTML document using JQuery Mobile demonstrating the solution.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile.structure-1.4.5.min.css" />
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile-1.4.5.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<form method="post">
<input type="text" name="email" />
<input type="submit" value="GO" onclick="save_autofill(this);" />
</form>
<script>
function save_autofill(o) {
$(':input[name]', $('#hidden_form')).val(function () {
return $(':input[name=' + this.name + ']', $(o.form)).val();
});
$('#hidden_form').find("input[type=submit]").click();
}
</script>
<iframe name="hidden_iframe" style="display:none"></iframe>
<form target="hidden_iframe" id="hidden_form" action="about:blank" style="display:none">
<input type="text" name="email" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
The save_autofill function just needs to be called on your main form submit button. If you have a scripted function that submits your form, place that call after the save_autofill call. You must have a named textbox in your hidden_form for each one in your main form.
If your site uses SSL, then you must change the URL for about:blank with https://about:blank.

From what i searched.. it seems you need to identify the names. Some standard names like 'name', 'email', 'phone', 'address' are automatically saved in most browser.
Well, the problem is, browsers handle these names differenetly. For example, here is chrome's regex:
first name: "first.*name|initials|fname|first$"
email: "e.?mail"
address (line 1): "address.*line|address1|addr1|street"
zipcode: "zip|postal|post.*code|pcode|^1z$"
But chrome also uses autocomplete, so you can customize the name and put an autocomplete type, but i believe this is not for custom fields..
Here is chrome's standard
And it's another thing in IE, Opera, and Mozilla. For now, you can try the iframe solution there, so you can submit it. (Maybe it's something semi-standard)
Well, that's all i can help.

Make sure you're submitting the form via POST. If you're submitting via ajax, do <form autocomplete="on" method="post">, omitting the action attribute.

you can use "." in both iframe src and form action.
<iframe id="remember" name="remember" style="display:none;" src="."></iframe>
<form target="remember" method="post" action=".">
<input type="text" id="path" size='110'>
<button type="submit" onclick="doyouthing();">your button</button>
</form>

Javascript login form doesn't submit when user hits Enter

I'm working on a simple javascript login for a site, and have come up with this:
<form id="loginwindow">
<strong>Login to view!</strong>
<p><strong>User ID:</strong>
<input type="text" name="text2">
</p>
<p><strong>Password:</strong>
<input type="password" name="text1"><br>
<input type="button" value="Check In" name="Submit" onclick=javascript:validate(text2.value,"username",text1.value,"password") />
</p>
</form>
<script language = "javascript">
function validate(text1,text2,text3,text4)
{
if (text1==text2 && text3==text4)
load('album.html');
else
{
load('failure.html');
}
}
function load(url)
{
location.href=url;
}
</script>
...which works except for one thing: hitting enter to submit the form doesn't do anything. I have a feeling it's cause I've used "onclick" but I'm not sure what to use instead. Thoughts?
Okay yeah so I'm well aware of how flimsy this is security-wise. It's not for anything particularly top secret, so it's not a huge issue, but if you guys could elaborate on your thoughts with code, I'd love to see your ideas. the code i listed is literally all I'm working with at this point, so I can start from scratch if need be.

There are several topics being discussed at once here. Let's try to clarify.
1. Your Immediate Concern:
(Why won't the input button work when ENTER is pressed?)
Use the submit button type.
<input type="submit".../>
..instead of
<input type="button".../>
Your problem doesn't really have anything to do with having used an onclick attribute. Instead, you're not getting the behavior you want because you've used the button input type, which simply doesn't behave the same way that submit buttons do.
In HTML and XHTML, there are default behaviors for certain elements. Input buttons on forms are often of type "submit". In most browsers, "submit" buttons fire by default when ENTER is pressed from a focused element in the same form element. The "button" input type does not. If you'd like to take advantage of that default behavior, you can change your input type to "submit".
For example:
<form action="/post.php" method="post">
<!--
...
-->
<input type="submit" value="go"/>
</form>
2. Security concerns:
#Ady mentioned a security concern. There are a whole bucket of security concerns associated with doing a login in javascript. These are probably outside of the domain of this question, especially since you've indicated that you aren't particularly worried about it, and the fact that your login method was actually just setting the location.href to a new html page (indicating that you probably don't have any real security mechanism in place).
Instead of drudging that up, here are links to related topics on SO, if anyone is interested in those questions directly.
Is there some way I can do a user validation client-side?
Encrypting Ajax calls for authentication in jQuery
3. Other Issues:
Here's a quick cleanup of your code, which just follows some best practices. It doesn't address the security concern that folks have mentioned. Instead, I'm including it simply to illustrate some healthy habits. If you have specific questions about why I've written something a certain way, feel free to ask. Also, browse the stack for related topics (as your question may have already been discussed here).
The main thing to notice is the removal of the event attributes (onclick="", onsubmit="", or onkeypress="") from the HTML. Those belong in javascript, and it's considered a best practice to keep the javascript events out of the markup.
<form action="#" method="post" id="loginwindow">
<h3>Login to view!</h3>
<label>User ID: <input type="text" id="userid"></label>
<label>Password: <input type="password" id="pass"></label>
<input type="submit" value="Check In" />
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload = function () {
var loginForm = document.getElementById('loginwindow');
if ( loginwindow ) {
loginwindow.onsubmit = function () {
var userid = document.getElementById('userid');
var pass = document.getElementById('pass');
// Make sure javascript found the nodes:
if (!userid || !pass ) {
return false;
}
// Actually check values, however you'd like this to be done:
if (pass.value !== "secret") {
location.href = 'failure.html';
}
location.href = 'album.html';
return false;
};
}
};
</script>

Put the script directly in your html document. Change the onclick value with the function you want to use. The script in the html will tell the form to submit when the user hits enter or press the submit button.
<form id="Form-v2" action="#">
<input type="text" name="search_field" placeholder="Enter a movie" value=""
id="search_field" title="Enter a movie here" class="blink search-field" />
<input type="submit" onclick="" value="GO!" class="search-button" />
</form>
<script>
//submit the form
$( "#Form-v2" ).submit(function( event ) {
event.preventDefault();
});
</script>

Instead of <input type="button">, use <input type="submit">. You can put your validation code in your form onsubmit handler:
<form id="loginwindow" onsubmit="validate(...)">

it's because it's not a form submitting, so there's no event to be triggered when the user presses enter. An alternative to the above form submit options would be to add an event listener for the input form to detect if the user pressed enter.
<input type="password" name="text1" onkeypress="detectKey(event)">

Maybe you can try this:
<form id="loginwindow" onsubmit='validate(text2.value,"username",text1.value,"password")'>
<strong>Login to view!</strong>
<p><strong>User ID:</strong>
<input type="text" name="text2">
</p>
<p><strong>Password:</strong>
<input type="password" name="text1"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Check In"/>
</p>
</form>
As others have pointed out, there are other problems with your solution. But this should answer your question.

Surely this is too unsecure as everyone can crack it in a second ...
-- only pseudo-secure way to do js-logins are the like:
<form action="http://www.mySite.com/" method="post" onsubmit="this.action+=this.theName.value+this.thePassword.value;">
Name: <input type="text" name="theName"><br>
Password: <input type="password" name="thePassword"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Login now">
</form>

My Thought = Massive security hole. Anyone can view the username and password.
More relevant to your question: - You have two events happening.
User clicks button.
User presses enter.
The enter key submits the form, but does not click the button.
By placing your code in the onsubmit method of the form the code will run when the form is submitted. By changing the input type of the button to submit, the button will submit the form in the same way that the enter button does.
Your code will then run for both events.

How to submit a form when the return key is pressed?

Can someone please tell me how to submit an HTML form when the return key is pressed and if there are no buttons in the form?
The submit button is not there. I am using a custom div instead of that.

To submit the form when the enter key is pressed create a javascript function along these lines.
function checkSubmit(e) {
if(e && e.keyCode == 13) {
document.forms[0].submit();
}
}
Then add the event to whatever scope you need eg on the div tag:
<div onKeyPress="return checkSubmit(event)"/>
This is also the default behaviour of Internet Explorer 7 anyway though (probably earlier versions as well).

IMO, this is the cleanest answer:
<form action="" method="get">
Name: <input type="text" name="name"/><br/>
Pwd: <input type="password" name="password"/><br/>
<div class="yourCustomDiv"/>
<input type="submit" style="display:none"/>
</form>
Better yet, if you are using javascript to submit the form using the custom div, you should also use javascript to create it, and to set the display:none style on the button. This way users with javascript disabled will still see the submit button and can click on it.
It has been noted that display:none will cause IE to ignore the input. I created a new JSFiddle example that starts as a standard form, and uses progressive enhancement to hide the submit and create the new div. I did use the CSS styling from StriplingWarrior.

I tried various javascript/jQuery-based strategies, but I kept having issues. The latest issue to arise involved accidental submission when the user uses the enter key to select from the browser's built-in auto-complete list. I finally switched to this strategy, which seems to work on all the browsers my company supports:
<div class="hidden-submit"><input type="submit" tabindex="-1"/></div>
.hidden-submit {
border: 0 none;
height: 0;
width: 0;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
overflow: hidden;
}
This is similar to the currently-accepted answer by Chris Marasti-Georg, but by avoiding display: none, it appears to work correctly on all browsers.
Update
I edited the code above to include a negative tabindex so it doesn't capture the tab key. While this technically won't validate in HTML 4, the HTML5 spec includes language to make it work the way most browsers were already implementing it anyway.

Use the <button> tag. From the W3C standard:
Buttons created with the BUTTON element function just like buttons created with the INPUT element, but they offer richer rendering possibilities: the BUTTON element may have content. For example, a BUTTON element that contains an image functions like and may resemble an INPUT element whose type is set to "image", but the BUTTON element type allows content.
Basically there is another tag, <button>, which requires no javascript, that also can submit a form. It can be styled much in the way of a <div> tag (including <img /> inside the button tag). The buttons from the <input /> tag are not nearly as flexible.
<button type="submit">
<img src="my-icon.png" />
Clicking will submit the form
</button>
There are three types to set on the <button>; they map to the <input> button types.
<button type="submit">Will submit the form</button>
<button type="reset">Will reset the form</button>
<button type="button">Will do nothing; add javascript onclick hooks</button>
Standards
W3C wiki about <button>
HTML5 <button>
HTML4 <button>
I use <button> tags with css-sprites and a bit of css styling to get colorful and functional form buttons. Note that it's possible to write css for, for example, <a class="button"> links share to styling with the <button> element.

Here is how I do it with jQuery
j(".textBoxClass").keypress(function(e)
{
// if the key pressed is the enter key
if (e.which == 13)
{
// do work
}
});
Other javascript wouldnt be too different. the catch is checking for keypress argument of "13", which is the enter key

I believe this is what you want.
//<![CDATA[
//Send form if they hit enter.
document.onkeypress = enter;
function enter(e) {
if (e.which == 13) { sendform(); }
}
//Form to send
function sendform() {
document.forms[0].submit();
}
//]]>
Every time a key is pressed, function enter() will be called. If the key pressed matches the enter key (13), then sendform() will be called and the first encountered form will be sent. This is only for Firefox and other standards compliant browsers.
If you find this code useful, please be sure to vote me up!

Use the following script.
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
<!--
function submitenter(myfield,e)
{
var keycode;
if (window.event) keycode = window.event.keyCode;
else if (e) keycode = e.which;
else return true;
if (keycode == 13)
{
myfield.form.submit();
return false;
}
else
return true;
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>
For each field that should submit the form when the user hits enter, call the submitenter function as follows.
<FORM ACTION="../cgi-bin/formaction.pl">
name: <INPUT NAME=realname SIZE=15><BR>
password: <INPUT NAME=password TYPE=PASSWORD SIZE=10
onKeyPress="return submitenter(this,event)"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Submit">
</FORM>

I use this method:
<form name='test' method=post action='sendme.php'>
<input type=text name='test1'>
<input type=button value='send' onClick='document.test.submit()'>
<input type=image src='spacer.gif'> <!-- <<<< this is the secret! -->
</form>
Basically, I just add an invisible input of type image (where "spacer.gif" is a 1x1 transparent gif).
In this way, I can submit this form either with the 'send' button or simply by pressing enter on the keyboard.
This is the trick!

Why don't you just apply the div submit styles to a submit button? I'm sure there's a javascript for this but that would be easier.

If you are using asp.net you can use the defaultButton attribute on the form.

I think you should actually have a submit button or a submit image... Do you have a specific reason for using a "submit div"? If you just want custom styles I recommend <input type="image".... http://webdesign.about.com/cs/forms/a/aaformsubmit_2.htm

Extending on the answers, this is what worked for me, maybe someone will find it useful.
Html
<form method="post" action="/url" id="editMeta">
<textarea class="form-control" onkeypress="submitOnEnter(event)"></textarea>
</form>
Js
function submitOnEnter(e) {
if (e.which == 13) {
document.getElementById("editMeta").submit()
}
}

Similar to Chris Marasti-Georg's example, instead using inline javascript.
Essentially add onkeypress to the fields you want the enter key to work with. This example acts on the password field.
<html>
<head><title>title</title></head>
<body>
<form action="" method="get">
Name: <input type="text" name="name"/><br/>
Pwd: <input type="password" name="password" onkeypress="if(event.keyCode==13) {javascript:form.submit();}" /><br/>
<input type="submit" onClick="javascript:form.submit();"/>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Since display: none buttons and inputs won't work in Safari and IE, I found that the easiest way, requiring no extra javascript hacks, is to simply add an absolutely positioned <button /> to the form and place it far off screen.
<form action="" method="get">
<input type="text" name="name" />
<input type="password" name="password" />
<div class="yourCustomDiv"/>
<button style="position:absolute;left:-10000px;right:9990px"/>
</form>
This works in the current version of all major browsers as of September 2016.
Obviously its reccomended (and more semantically correct) to just style the <button/> as desired.

Using the "autofocus" attribute works to give input focus to the button by default. In fact clicking on any control within the form also gives focus to the form, a requirement for the form to react to the RETURN. So, the "autofocus" does that for you in case the user never clicked on any other control within the form.
So, the "autofocus" makes the crucial difference if the user never clicked on any of the form controls before hitting RETURN.
But even then, there are still 2 conditions to be met for this to work without JS:
a) you have to specify a page to go to (if left empty it wont work). In my example it is hello.php
b) the control has to be visible. You could conceivably move it off the page to hide, but you cannot use display:none or visibility:hidden.
What I did, was to use inline style to just move it off the page to the left by 200px. I made the height 0px so that it does not take up space. Because otherwise it can still disrupt other controls above and below. Or you could float the element too.
<form action="hello.php" method="get">
Name: <input type="text" name="name"/><br/>
Pwd: <input type="password" name="password"/><br/>
<div class="yourCustomDiv"/>
<input autofocus type="submit" style="position:relative; left:-200px; height:0px;" />
</form>