Question

My form lets users submit a poem.

Sometimes, there’s a field for a new user name on that page (if nobody’s logged in). In that case, I want to override the button click so that it signs them up first:

$('#submit-poem').click ->
  $('input[type=submit]').attr('disabled', true)
  if $('#new_poet_name_field').length
    signUp();  // This will submit the poem form after registering
    false
  else
    console.log("A poet was already logged in!")
    true

This used to work fine. But now, when there is no new_poet_name_field, the submit button stays disabled. Returning true used to submit the form. Now, I have to explicitly do $('#new_question')[0].submit() if there is no poet_name_field.

Why doesn’t the form submit when true is returned? My workaround is worrisome; it seems possible that the form might submit twice now: once when I explicitly submit it, and once when true is returned.

Answer 1

You should bind to the form ‘submit’ event and use preventDefault/return false when you want someone to sign up instead of submitting the poem. This way there is no need to do any disabling/enabling of buttons.