CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlformssubmit
PythonPower
PythonPower

Reputation:

Submitting a form by pressing enter without a submit button

Well I am trying to submit a form by pressing enter but not displaying a submit button. I don't want to get into JavaScript if possible since I want everything to work on all browsers (the only JS way I know is with events).

Right now the form looks like this:

<form name="loginBox" target="#here" method="post">
    <input name="username" type="text" /><br />
    <input name="password" type="password" />
    <input type="submit" style="height: 0px; width: 0px; border: none; padding: 0px;" hidefocus="true" />
</form>

Which works pretty well. The submit button works when the user presses enter, and the button doesn't show in Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera and Chrome. However, I still don't like the solution since it is hard to know whether it will work on all platforms with all browsers.

Can anyone suggest a better method? Or is this about as good as it gets?

Upvotes: 404

Views: 665963

Answers (21)

Travis Reeder
Travis Reeder

Reputation: 41083

Modern answer for 2023 and beyond

The other answers are old or use jquery (which is also old and shouldn't be used in modern apps). keyCode is also deprecated and shouldn't be used.

<form id="myform">
  <input type="text" id="q" name="q" placeholder="Search...">
</form>

<script>
document.querySelector('#id').addEventListener('keydown', (event) => {
  if(event.key === 'Enter'){
    document.querySelector('#myform').submit()
    return false
  }
})
</script>

Upvotes: 2

Ateş G&#246;ral
Ateş G&#246;ral

Reputation: 140032

Update 2022: Use this instead

<input type="submit" hidden />
Notice - Outdated answer
Please do not use position: absolute in the year 2021+. It's recommended to use the hidden attribute instead. Otherwise, look down below and pick a better, more modern, answer.

Try:

<input type="submit" style="position: absolute; left: -9999px"/>

That will push the button waaay to the left, out of the screen. The nice thing with this is, you'd get graceful degradation when CSS is disabled.

Update - Workaround for IE7

As suggested by Bryan Downing + with tabindex to prevent tab reach this button (by Ates Goral):

<input type="submit" 
       style="position: absolute; left: -9999px; width: 1px; height: 1px;"
       tabindex="-1" />

Upvotes: 326

QXE company
QXE company

Reputation: 38

Here is the code that worked to me sure it will help you

<form name="loginBox" target="#here" method="post">
  <input name="username" type="text" /><br />
  <input name="password" type="password" />
  <input type="submit" />
</form>

<script type="text/javascript">
  $(function () {
    $("form").each(function () {
      $(this)
        .find("input")
        .keypress(function (e) {
          if (e.which == 10 || e.which == 13) {
            this.form.submit();
          }
        });
      $(this).find("input[type=submit]").hide();
    });
  });
</script>

Upvotes: 0

Marty
Marty

Reputation: 59

input.on('keypress', function(event) {
    if ( event.which === 13 ) {
        form.submit();
        return false;
    }
});

Upvotes: 3

FirstVertex
FirstVertex

Reputation: 3785

I work with a bunch of UI frameworks. Many of them have a built-in class you can use to visually hide things.

Bootstrap

<input type="submit" class="sr-only" tabindex="-1">

Angular Material

<input type="submit" class="cdk-visually-hidden" tabindex="-1">

Brilliant minds who created these frameworks have defined these styles as follows:

.sr-only {
    position: absolute;
    width: 1px;
    height: 1px;
    padding: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    clip: rect(0, 0, 0, 0);
    white-space: nowrap;
    border: 0;
}

.cdk-visually-hidden {
    border: 0;
    clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
    height: 1px;
    margin: -1px;
    overflow: hidden;
    padding: 0;
    position: absolute;
    width: 1px;
    outline: 0;
    -webkit-appearance: none;
    -moz-appearance: none;
}

Upvotes: 6

Andrei L
Andrei L

Reputation: 3641

HTML5 solution

<input type="submit" hidden />

Upvotes: 8

Panomosh
Panomosh

Reputation: 892

For anyone looking at this answer in future, HTML5 implements a new attribute for form elements, hidden, which will automatically apply display:none to your element.

e.g.

<input type="submit" hidden />

Upvotes: 34

Shammoo
Shammoo

Reputation: 1103

<input type="submit" style="display:none;"/>

This works fine and it is the most explicit version of what you're trying to achieve.

Note that there is a difference between display:none and visibility:hidden for other form elements.

Upvotes: 7

damoiser
damoiser

Reputation: 6238

Another solution without the submit button:

HTML

<form>
  <input class="submit_on_enter" type="text" name="q" placeholder="Search...">
</form>

jQuery

$(document).ready(function() {

  $('.submit_on_enter').keydown(function(event) {
    // enter has keyCode = 13, change it if you want to use another button
    if (event.keyCode == 13) {
      this.form.submit();
      return false;
    }
  });

});

Upvotes: 42

Waltur Buerk
Waltur Buerk

Reputation: 1368

The most elegant way of doing this is to keep the submit-button, but set it's border, padding and font-size to 0.

This will make the button dimensions 0x0.

<input type="submit" style="border:0; padding:0; font-size:0">

You can try this yourself, and by setting an outline to the element you will see a dot, which is the outside border "surrounding" the 0x0 px element.

No need for visibility:hidden, but if it makes you sleep at night, you can throw that in the mix as well.

JS Fiddle

Upvotes: 8

waney
waney

Reputation: 402

You could try also this

<INPUT TYPE="image" SRC="0piximage.gif" HEIGHT="0" WIDTH="0" BORDER="0">

You could include an image with width/height = 0 px

Upvotes: 3

Winston Tamblyn
Winston Tamblyn

Reputation: 91

IE doesn't allow pressing the ENTER key for form submission if the submit button is not visible, and the form has more than one field. Give it what it wants by providing a 1x1 pixel transparent image as a submit button. Of course it will take up a pixel of the layout, but look what you have to do to hide it.

<input type="image" src="img/1x1trans.gif"/>

Upvotes: 5

Shahin Mammadzada
Shahin Mammadzada

Reputation: 79

the simplest way

<input type="submit" style="width:0px; height:0px; opacity:0;"/>

Upvotes: 5

strager
strager

Reputation: 90012

I think you should go the Javascript route, or at least I would:

<script type="text/javascript">
// Using jQuery.

$(function() {
    $('form').each(function() {
        $(this).find('input').keypress(function(e) {
            // Enter pressed?
            if(e.which == 10 || e.which == 13) {
                this.form.submit();
            }
        });

        $(this).find('input[type=submit]').hide();
    });
});
</script>


<form name="loginBox" target="#here" method="post">
    <input name="username" type="text" /><br />
    <input name="password" type="password" />
    <input type="submit" />
</form>

Upvotes: 106

jumpnett
jumpnett

Reputation: 7217

Just set the hidden attribute to true:

<form name="loginBox" target="#here" method="post">
    <input name="username" type="text" /><br />
    <input name="password" type="password" />
    <input type="submit" hidden="true" />
</form>

Upvotes: 11

seePatCode
seePatCode

Reputation: 472

I added it to a function on document ready. If there is no submit button on the form (all of my Jquery Dialog Forms don't have submit buttons), append it.

$(document).ready(function (){
    addHiddenSubmitButtonsSoICanHitEnter();
});
function addHiddenSubmitButtonsSoICanHitEnter(){
    var hiddenSubmit = "<input type='submit' style='position: absolute; left: -9999px; width: 1px; height: 1px;' tabindex='-1'/>";
    $("form").each(function(i,el){
        if($(this).find(":submit").length==0)
            $(this).append(hiddenSubmit);
    });
}

Upvotes: 2

Mayank Gupta
Mayank Gupta

Reputation: 141

Use following code, this fixed my problem in all 3 browsers (FF, IE and Chrome):

<input  type="submit" name="update" value=" Apply " 
    style="position: absolute; height: 0px; width: 0px; border: none; padding: 0px;"
    hidefocus="true" tabindex="-1"/>

Add above line as a first line in your code with appropriate value of name and value.

Upvotes: 14

vjnrv
vjnrv

Reputation: 91

This is my solution, tested in Chrome, Firefox 6 and IE7+:

.hidden{
    height: 1px;
    width: 1px;
    position: absolute;
    z-index: -100;
}

Upvotes: 5

Jekis
Jekis

Reputation: 4685

For those who have problems with IE and for others too.

{
    float: left;
    width: 1px;
    height: 1px;
    background-color: transparent;
    border: none;
}

Upvotes: 3

andyk
andyk

Reputation: 10008

Have you tried this ?

<input type="submit" style="visibility: hidden;" />

Since most browsers understand visibility:hidden and it doesn't really work like display:none, I'm guessing that it should be fine, though. Haven't really tested it myself, so CMIIW.

Upvotes: 84

Noldorin
Noldorin

Reputation: 147240

Instead of the hack you currently use to hide the button, it would be much simpler to set visibility: collapse; in the style attribute. However, I would still recommend using a bit of simple Javascript to submit the form. As far as I understand, support for such things is ubiquitous nowadays.

Upvotes: 8

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