Question

How to implement a periodical save of a form in the background? Same kinda thing that gmail does.

Answer 1

setInterval(function(){
  var form = $('#my-form-id');
  var method = form.attr('method').toLowerCase();      // "get" or "post"
  var action = form.attr('action');                    // url to submit to
  $[method](action, form.serialize(), function(data){
    // Do something with the server response data      
    // Or at least let the user know it saved
  });
},10000);                                              // do it every 10 seconds

If you don’t want to use the method of the form, but always want to use ‘post’, then use:

$.post(action, form.serialize(), ... );

And, if you want to supply your own action for the autosave that is different from the action for the actual save:

$.post("/autosave/comments", form.serialize(), ... );