Prevent users from submitting a form by hitting En

Question

I have a survey on a website, and there seems to be some issues with the users hitting enter (I don't know why) and accidentally submitting the survey (form) without clicking the submit button. Is there a way to prevent this?

I'm using HTML, PHP 5.2.9, and jQuery on the survey.

Answer 1

Something I have not seen answered here: when you tab through the elements on the page, pressing Enter when you get to the submit button will trigger the onsubmit handler on the form, but it will record the event as a MouseEvent. Here is my short solution to cover most bases:

This is not a jQuery-related answer

HTML

<form onsubmit="return false;" method=post>
  <input type="text" /><br />
  <input type="button" onclick="this.form.submit()" value="submit via mouse or keyboard" />
  <input type="button" onclick="submitMouseOnly(event)" value="submit via mouse only" />
</form>

JavaScript

window.submitMouseOnly=function(evt){
    let allow=(evt instanceof MouseEvent) && evt.x>0 && evt.y>0 && evt.screenX > 0 && evt.screenY > 0;
    if(allow)(evt.tagName=='FORM'?evt.target:evt.target.form).submit();
}

To find a working example: https://jsfiddle.net/nemesarial/6rhogva2/

Answer 2

Use:

$(document).on('keyup keypress', 'form input[type="text"]', function(e) {
  if(e.keyCode == 13) {
    e.preventDefault();
    return false;
  }
});

This solution works on all forms on a website (also on forms inserted with Ajax), preventing only Enters in input texts. Place it in a document ready function, and forget this problem for a life.

Answer 3

Not putting a submit button could do. Just put a script to the input (type=button) or add eventListener if you want it to submit the data in the form.

Rather use this

<input type="button">

than using this

<input type="submit">

Answer 4

If you use a script to do the actual submit, then you can add "return false" line to the onsubmit handler like this:

<form onsubmit="return false;">

Calling submit() on the form from JavaScript will not trigger the event.

Answer 5

You can use a method such as

$(document).ready(function() {
  $(window).keydown(function(event){
    if(event.keyCode == 13) {
      event.preventDefault();
      return false;
    }
  });
});

In reading the comments on the original post, to make it more usable and allow people to press Enter if they have completed all the fields:

function validationFunction() {
  $('input').each(function() {
    ...

  }
  if(good) {
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}

$(document).ready(function() {
  $(window).keydown(function(event){
    if( (event.keyCode == 13) && (validationFunction() == false) ) {
      event.preventDefault();
      return false;
    }
  });
});

Answer 6

Giving the form an action of 'javascript:void(0);' seems to do the trick

<form action="javascript:void(0);">
<input type="text" />
</form>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
    $(window).keydown(function(event){
        if(event.keyCode == 13) {
    alert('Hello');
        }
    });
});
</script>