jquery disable form submit on enter

Question

I have the following javascript in my page which does not seem to be working.

$('form').bind("keypress", function(e) {
  if (e.keyCode == 13) {               
    e.preventDefault();
    return false;
  }
});

I'd like to disable submitting the form on enter, or better yet, to call my ajax form submit. Either solution is acceptable but the code I'm including above does not prevent the form from submitting.

Solution 1

If keyCode is not caught, catch which:

$('#formid').on('keyup keypress', function(e) {
  var keyCode = e.keyCode || e.which;
  if (keyCode === 13) { 
    e.preventDefault();
    return false;
  }
});

EDIT: missed it, it's better to use keyup instead of keypress

EDIT 2: As in some newer versions of Firefox the form submission is not prevented, it's safer to add the keypress event to the form as well. Also it doesn't work (anymore?) by just binding the event to the form "name" but only to the form id. Therefore I made this more obvious by changing the code example appropriately.

EDIT 3: Changed bind() to on()

Solution 2

Usually form is submitted on Enter when you have focus on input elements.

We can disable Enter key (code 13) on input elements within a form:

$('form input').on('keypress', function(e) {
    return e.which !== 13;
});

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/bnx96/325/

Solution 3

Even shorter:

$('myform').submit(function() {
  return false;
});

Solution 4

$('form').keyup(function(e) {
  return e.which !== 13  
});

The event.which property normalizes event.keyCode and event.charCode. It is recommended to watch event.which for keyboard key input.

which docs.

Solution 5

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

This solution works on all forms on 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.

View more solutions

Comments

[SamB]

Here is a simple HTML only solution: stackoverflow.com/a/51507806/337934

[Bojangles]

jQuery normalises it to e.which, so you don't need to test for e.keyCode, but +1 for the most likely cause of this issue.

[tundoopani]

@zessx This doesn't seem to work if keyup is used though. See jsfiddle.net/bD9jN/1

[Danubian Sailor]

why keyup is better than keypress? I'm in situation when I've had to register to both to stop the form submitting.

[zessx]

ENTER is a key, not a char. Depending of your browser, you can have some issues as keypress is only fired when a char is typed (generally with webkit). Using keyup assure you to catch any kind of key, like a-z, enter, arrows...

[s.krueger]

This (and the fiddle) don't seem to work any longer (FF21) :(

[Dylan Valade]

iOS Go button was my problem on a custom autocomplete input field. This solved it.

[Nick]

This will disable all form submission, including clicking the submit button.

[haibuihoang]

But this will prevent user click as well?

[Tom]

@haibuihoang Yes this will disable form submission.

[Dirk Schumacher]

Controverse to the EDIT of this answer: I had an issue w/ 'keyup'. It seemed that the submit was already done before the key came up and the event was triggered. Thus keypress works for me.

[shaneparsons]

This prevents the enter key from being used in textareas within the same form. Using $("form input") instead of $("form :input") seems to fix it. DEMO: jsfiddle.net/bnx96/279

[flu]

You should use function(e) {e.preventDefault();} as return values in event handlers are deprecated: stackoverflow.com/a/20045473/601386

[daveslab]

@user1111929 This does work great but it shouldn't be the top answer because the question asked only about Enter and not about disabling form submission by the Submit button.

[afnpires]

Actually it should be e.target.nodeName === 'INPUT' && e.target.type !== 'textarea'. With the specified code it will allow to submit forms if a radio or checkbox are focused.

[chromigo]

Do you need return false; for this? e.preventDefault(); seems enougth

[HaveNoDisplayName]

add some explanation

[Yvan1263]

@HaveNoDisplayName : Updated.

[German Khokhlov]

Important! This solution block breaks in textarea.

[Krushna]

This is not working any more in chrome, does any one has some better solution

[JRad the Bad]

A common situation in which you may want to preserve the form submission, but disable submission on pressing the 'enter' key, is if you decide to use a jQuery onClick event to validate a form, and still submit using jQuery. In other words, there are cases where you only want to submit via javascript/jQuery. While you can still use AJAX with this solution, it disables the base functionality of the submit method.

[Tikky]

The problem is if I have in the same form a textbox, now I can't add an enter(to make a new line) in textbox.

[KingRider]

not 100%... work a regular submit a key... best use jquery to prevent

[KingRider]

Good code example, but my opinion is best use BIND (depend a version jquery) and key events jquery-ui (Look: api.jqueryui.com/jQuery.ui.keyCode) enjoy ;-) ... thanks zessx

[Mario Werner]

This also prevents the form from being submitted if you click the "Submit" button.

[emilys]

Good alternate answer (with the caveats above) because... well, sometimes this is all you need.

[teran]

keyCode === 13 && !$(e.target).is('textarea')

[John Langford]

In my case I wanted to allow the user to submit the form exactly once by pressing Enter. I used a method very similar to this one, but instead I set a "form_enabled" variable to false after the first form submission, then I checked that variable to determine whether to return false on form submission.

[shababhsiddique]

this is exactly what i needed for a situation, thank you

[MattClaff]

This submit normally happens on enter within input & textarea so adding if(keyCode === 13 && event.target.nodeName === 'INPUT' && event.target.nodeName === 'TEXTAREA') should do the trick.

[Luo Jiong Hui]

I added an invisible input box to counter "form will be submitted upon ENTER key" caused by "the form has only 1 input field and that field is a 'text' input".

[Tarandeep Singh]

@MarioWerner if you look at the question, it says specifically to avoid form submit. and this is the purpose of this code. so the user does not want the form submit for a single form which is why this should work. Yes this should not work on form submit, since user want to do stuff on any kind of submit action.

[Mario Werner]

@TarandeepSingh No, the title and the question say "disable form submit on enter"

[Jonathan]

Please explain your solution.

[Mauliardiwinoto]

this safe my day. Actually i'm using it because my input have to do something before submit press, so to make sure that work, i have to disable my enter key on that form. Thanks in advance :)