Prevent users from submitting a form by hitting Enter

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 clicki

Answer 1

This is the perfect way, You will be not redirected from your page

$('form input').keydown(function (e) {
if (e.keyCode == 13) {
    e.preventDefault();
    return false;
}
});

Answer 2

Using Javascript (without checking any input field):

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

If someone wants to apply this on specific fields, for example input type text:

<script>
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 works well in my case.

Answer 3

ONLY BLOCK SUBMIT but not other, important functionality of enter key, such as creating a new paragraph in a <textarea>:

window.addEventListener('keydown', function(event) {
  //set default value for variable that will hold the status of keypress
  pressedEnter = false;

  //if user pressed enter, set the variable to true
  if (event.keyCode == 13)
    pressedEnter = true;

  //we want forms to disable submit for a tenth of a second only
  setTimeout(function() {
    pressedEnter = false;
  }, 100)

})

//find all forms
var forms = document.getElementsByTagName('form')

//loop through forms
for (i = 0; i < forms.length; i++) {
  //listen to submit event
  forms[i].addEventListener('submit', function(e) {
    //if user just pressed enter, stop the submit event
    if (pressedEnter == true) {
      updateLog('Form prevented from submit.')
      e.preventDefault();
      return false;
    }

    updateLog('Form submitted.')
  })
}

var log = document.getElementById('log')
updateLog = function(msg) {
  log.innerText = msg
}

input,
textarea {
  display: inline-block;
  margin-bottom: 1em;
  border: 1px solid #6f6f6f;
  padding: 5px;
  border-radius: 2px;
  width: 90%;
  font-size: 14px;
}

input[type=submit] {
  background: lightblue;
  color: #fff;
}

<form>
  <p>Sample textarea (try enter key):</p>
  <textarea rows="4">Hit enter, a new line will be added. But the form won't submit</textarea><br/>
  <p>Sample textfield (try enter key):</p>
  <input type="text" placeholder="" />
  <br/>
  <input type="submit" value="Save" />
  <h3 id="log"></h3>
</form>

Answer 4

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 5

This has worked for me in all browsers after much frustration with other solutions. The name_space outer function is just to stay away from declaring globals, something I also recommend.

$(function() {window.name_space = new name_space();}); //jquery doc ready
function name_space() {
    this.is_ie = (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE") !== -1);

    this.stifle = function(event) {
        event.cancelBubble;
        event.returnValue = false;
        if(this.is_ie === false) {
            event.preventDefault();
        }
        return false;
    }

    this.on_enter = function(func) {
        function catch_key(e) {
            var enter = 13;
            if(!e) {
                var e = event;
            }
            keynum = GetKeyNum(e);
            if (keynum === enter) {
                if(func !== undefined && func !== null) {
                    func();
                }
                return name_space.stifle(e);
            }
            return true; // submit
        }

        if (window.Event) {
            window.captureEvents(Event.KEYDOWN);
            window.onkeydown = catch_key;
        }
        else {
            document.onkeydown = catch_key;
        }

        if(name_space.is_ie === false) {
            document.onkeypress = catch_key;    
        }
    }
}

Sample use:

$(function() {
    name_space.on_enter(
        function () {alert('hola!');}
    );
});

Answer 6

I think it's well covered with all the answers, but if you are using a button with some JavaScript validation code you could just set the form's onkeypress for Enter to call your submit as expected:

<form method="POST" action="..." onkeypress="if(event.keyCode == 13) mySubmitFunction(this); return false;">

The onkeypress JS could be whatever you need to do. There's no need for a larger, global change. This is especially true if you're not the one coding the app from scratch, and you've been brought into fix someone else's web site without tearing it apart and re-testing it.