220
votes

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.

20
Here is a simple HTML only solution: stackoverflow.com/a/51507806/337934SamB

20 Answers

453
votes

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()

65
votes

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/

43
votes

Even shorter:

$('myform').submit(function() {
  return false;
});
23
votes
$('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.

16
votes
$(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.

10
votes

Most answers above will prevent users from adding new lines in a textarea field. If this is something you want to avoid, you can exclude this particular case by checking which element currently has focus :

var keyCode = e.keyCode || e.which;
if (keyCode === 13 && !$(document.activeElement).is('textarea')) {
  e.preventDefault();
  return false;
}
9
votes

The overkill of having to capture and test every keystroke for the ENTER key really bugs me, so my solution relies on the following browser behavior:

Pressing ENTER will trigger a click event on the submit button (tested in IE11, Chrome 38, FF 31) ** (ref: http://mattsnider.com/how-forms-submit-when-pressing-enter/ )

So my solution is to remove the standard submit button (i.e. <input type="submit">) so that the above behavior fails because there's no submit button to magically click when ENTER is pressed. Instead, I use a jQuery click handler on a regular button to submit the form via jQuery's .submit() method.

<form id="myform" method="post">
  <input name="fav_color" type="text">
  <input name="fav_color_2" type="text">
<button type="button" id="form-button-submit">DO IT!</button>
</form>

<script>
 $('#form-button-submit').click(function(){
    $('#myform').submit();
  });
</script>

Demo: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/fxeyv?editors=101

** this behavior is not applicable if the form has only 1 input field and that field is a 'text' input; in this case the form will be submitted upon ENTER key even if no submit button is present in the HTML markup (e.g. a search field). This has been standard browser behavior since the 90s.

8
votes

The simple way is to change type of button to button - in html and then add event in js...

Change from this:

<form id="myForm">
   <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

To

<form id="myForm">
   <button type="button" id="btnSubmit">Submit</button>
</form>

And in js or jquery add:

$("#btnSubmit").click(function () {
    $('#myForm').submit();
});
7
votes

if you just want to disable submit on enter and submit button too use form's onsubmit event

<form onsubmit="return false;">

You can replace "return false" with call to JS function that will do whatever needed and also submit the form as a last step.

5
votes

You can do this perfectly in pure Javascript, simple and no library required. Here it is my detailed answer for a similar topic: Disabling enter key for form

In short, here is the code:

<script type="text/javascript">
window.addEventListener('keydown',function(e){if(e.keyIdentifier=='U+000A'||e.keyIdentifier=='Enter'||e.keyCode==13){if(e.target.nodeName=='INPUT'&&e.target.type=='text'){e.preventDefault();return false;}}},true);
</script>

This code is to prevent "Enter" key for input type='text' only. (Because the visitor might need to hit enter across the page) If you want to disable "Enter" for other actions as well, you can add console.log(e); for your your test purposes, and hit F12 in chrome, go to "console" tab and hit "backspace" on the page and look inside it to see what values are returned, then you can target all of those parameters to further enhance the code above to suit your needs for "e.target.nodeName", "e.target.type" and many more...

3
votes

I don't know if you already resolve this problem, or anyone trying to solve this right now but, here is my solution for this!

$j(':input:not(textarea)').keydown(function(event){
    var kc = event.witch || event.keyCode;
    if(kc == 13){
    event.preventDefault();
        $j(this).closest('form').attr('data-oldaction', function(){
            return $(this).attr('action');
        }).attr('action', 'javascript:;');

        alert('some_text_if_you_want');

        $j(this).closest('form').attr('action', function(){
            return $(this).attr('data-oldaction');
        });
        return false;
    }
});
1
votes

The following code will negate the enter key from being used to submit a form, but will still allow you to use the enter key in a textarea. You can edit it further depending on your needs.

<script type="text/javascript">
        function stopRKey(evt) {
          var evt = (evt) ? evt : ((event) ? event : null);
          var node = (evt.target) ? evt.target : ((evt.srcElement) ? evt.srcElement : null);
          if ((evt.keyCode == 13) && ((node.type=="text") || (node.type=="radio") || (node.type=="checkbox")) )  {return false;}
        }

        document.onkeypress = stopRKey;
</script> 
1
votes

In firefox, when you at input and press enter, it will submit it's upper form. The solution is in the will submit form add this:

<input type="submit" onclick="return false;" style="display:none" />
1
votes

3 years later and not a single person has answered this question completely.

The asker wants to cancel the default form submission and call their own Ajax. This is a simple request with a simple solution. There is no need to intercept every character entered into each input.

Assuming the form has a submit button, whether a <button id="save-form"> or an <input id="save-form" type="submit">, do:

$("#save-form").on("click", function () {
    $.ajax({
        ...
    });
    return false;
});
1
votes
$('#FormID').on('keyup keypress', function (e) {
        var keyCode = e.keyCode || e.which;
        if (keyCode === 13) {
            e.preventDefault();
            return false;
        }
    });
0
votes

I heard which is not recommended, so change Best rated answer to this.

$('#formid').on('keyup keypress', function(e) {
  if (e.key === 'Enter') { 
    e.preventDefault();
    return false;
  }
});

ref. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEvent/which

0
votes

Here is a simple JavaScript solution without using different variations of handling keydown or keypress events:

document.forms[0].addEventListener('submit', function(e) {
    if(document.activeElement.getAttribute('type') !== 'submit') {
        e.preventDefault();
    }
});

Submitting the form will occur only when the active element on your page is the submit button. So you can submit the form by clicking on your submit button or by pressing the ENTER key when the submit button has focus.

-2
votes

When the file is finished (load complete), the script detect each event for " Entry " key and he disable the event behind.

<script>
            $(document).ready(function () {
                $(window).keydown(function(event){
                    if(event.keyCode == 13) {
                        e.preventDefault(); // Disable the " Entry " key
                        return false;               
                    }
                });
            });
        </script>
-4
votes

Complete Solution in JavaScript for all browsers

The code above and most of the solutions are perfect. However, I think the most liked one "short answer" which is incomplete.

So here's the entire answer. in JavaScript with native Support for IE 7 as well.

var form = document.getElementById("testForm");
form.addEventListener("submit",function(e){e.preventDefault(); return false;});

This solution will now prevent the user from submit using the enter Key and will not reload the page, or take you to the top of the page, if your form is somewhere below.

-10
votes

How about this:

$(":submit").closest("form").submit(function(){
    $(':submit').attr('disabled', 'disabled');
});

This should disable all forms with submit buttons in your app.