Develop Reference

is there a way to control when the action of a form occurs with javascript?

Say we have got a form with an action for example : <form id="form" name="form" action="test.php"> Is there a way to control when will the action occur even if i hit the submit button using Javascript?

you can control it by deciding when you hit the button.
the action attribute of the form tag just dictates what handles the submitted info. For a delay, or other fancy stuff you may want to incorporate some javascript into your front-end design.
here is a link

Try something like this:
$(document).ready(function() {
$('form').on('submit', function(e){
e.preventDefault();
// other actions
})
})
You should call event.preventDefault() when form submit, it function will cancel sumbmiting of the form, later in your scipt you can sumbit it from Javascript.

HTML 5 form submit handler called even if form is invalid

I'm writing some unit tests for an HTML 5 app that uses the HTML 5 form validation API. I've attached a submit event handler to the form that does some custom handling before serializing to JSON and passing it off to my server.
What I've discovered, though, is that if I initiate a jQuery submit() event on the form, even if it's invalid, my submit handler still gets called.
Instead, I'd expect my event handler not to have been called because the form is invalid.
I've created a JSFiddle to demonstrate (tested in Chrome 20):
http://jsfiddle.net/jonbca/SYg4h/22/
So, what gives?

Triggering the ".submit()" handler simply does not have anything to do with the HTML5 form validation mechanism. That mechanism is really quite independent of JavaScript, and in fact it's mostly unavailable from the DOM API. You can explicitly call "checkValidity()" on a form element, but that just returns a boolean result and does not do any of the visual form updates that happen when the user clicks a "submit" form control.
It's important to keep in mind that many of the fancy HTML5 "smart markup" behaviors are designed to allow things to happen without the need for JavaScript.

Try triggering the submit button:
$('#submitBtn').click();
If you don't have one, just do a hidden one, that replicates the action.
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/SYg4h/30/

Try using a click handler on the button
$('#myform').submit(function (e) {
// check for validation here
var value = $('#foo').val();
if (!value || value == undefined)
$('#message').html('It did not submit');
else
$('#message').html("It submitted");
return false;
});
$('#submitBtn').click(function(){
$('#myform').submit();
});
Try this: http://jsfiddle.net/Cqzcu/4/

IE7 & IE8 does not trigger onsubmit javascript *before* submittion

I have a search form:
<form class="searchForm" id="topSearchForm" action="/search.ds">
that has an onsubmit-event attached to it, triggering a javascript. The purpose of this javascript is to empty certain form-fields before submission of the form based on certain criteria.
To be clear, what needs to happend is:
User input -> User clicks search button (or presses "enter") -> Javascript runs -> fields are cleared -> form is submitted
This works exactly as intended in all browsers except in IE7 and IE8. The javascript runs but for some reason the form submission is done before the fields are being cleared by the javascript. This causes the submitted page to include the data from fields that were supposed to be cleared.
I only have control of (certain parts of) the UI and cannot handle anything after the submission of the form. For usability purpose it is important that these fields (that should be cleared) are filled out up until the user submits the form.
Why is the internal logic different in IE7 & IE8 (it works fine in IE9 and "all other browsers)? Is there a way for me to circumvent this issue?
Here are some more code to clarify:
I attach the event to the form:
var formElement = document.getElementById("topSearchForm");
[...]
formElement.attachEvent('onsubmit', function() {clearForSubmit()});
and clearForSubmit is defined and is triggered.

You can try something like this in the js
<form onsubmit="clearForSubmit(); return false;">
this will NOT submit the form, you can submit the form after you clear it with
form_name.submit();

Use an onclick event instead of onsubmit, then submit the form at the end of the function in code.

jQuery validation errors are not shown when I'm not using a submit button

Check out this jsbin.
I have a form with a custom button that submits it via ajax (not a real submit button).
I'm using jquery-validation to validate the form, and running validate().checkForm() to validate it.
My question is - why don't the error messages on the specific fields appear when I do this? They appear all right when I'm using a standard submit button.
Edit: My example doesn't include the ajax submission, but just pretend it's there.

Because validate is listening for the submit event.
If you add $("form").submit(); inside the click event then it is fired.
http://jsbin.com/avuhed/edit#javascript,html,live

Piggy-backing on what #weezer said, you'll need to associate the form submission event with the button click, and you'll also want to put it inside the form itself. Right now it's sitting outside of it. For future updates, and sanity, it'll make your life easier to keep it grouped together.

The jquery validation is triggered by a standard form submit.
You may need to attach a .click handler to your custom submit button as so:
var isValid = $("#yourForm").valid();
if(isValid) {
// Do stuff
}
Yes, i have and if you put:
$("#submit").click(function() {
var isValid = $("#form").isValid();
if(isValid) {
alert('test');
}
});
Instead of what you have and move the custom button within the form, the validation works. http://jsbin.com/ajeyot/9

Did button actually click?

I have some javascript that ends up programatically clicking on a button:
document.getElementById("myButton").click();
This in turn results in the form being submitted using a function call:
<form onsubmit="submit_this_form(this);return false;" action="" method="POST">
It seems that a good percentage of the time either the actual button click is not going through or the form is not being submitted. I think the button click is going through and I know the code is being called because I have a counter embedded and I can see it is executing.
My question is...is there an event or a way to verify that the form actually posted? By the way, I don't have control of the HTML code so I can't change the tag content.

<form onsubmit="submit_this_form(this);return false;" action="" method="POST">
return false after submit_this_form() essentially stops the form from actually submitting. I believe if you change it to:
<form onsubmit="submit_this_form(this);" action="" method="POST">
It should work as you want.
Using return false after an event handler will essentially 'hijack' the default functionality. Basically, whatever your event handler function script does replaces the default behavior, which in this case, is submitting the form data to the server.

I don't think you can verify that form is actually where submitted.
But you can submit it by hand via XMLHTTPRequest and check for server responce.
This way you will be sure thet form is submitted. And you can have an event (your custom event) that says about form submission if you need to...
BTW do not forget to prevent forms default submit if you go AJAX way.
Check jquery.form plugin to make a fast rollout of AJAX form submission and look is it what you want or not.
Good luck!