Detecting autocomplete on form input with jQuery

Question

I have a form that detects if all the text-fields are valid on each keyup() and focus(); if they're all valid, it will enable the submit button for the user to press. However, if the user fills in one of the text inputs with a browsers autocomplete feature, it prevents the submit button from being enabled.

Is there a way to detect if any of the input has changed regardless of how it's been changed, using jQuery?

Answer 1

You could use the jQuery .change() function.

After the page initially loads, you can validate the entire form, just to check that it is in fact not filled in. After that you can use .change() to check if things have changed on the form, and if anything has changed, validate the form again.

$(document).ready(function() {
   // validate form once, just to be sure (if valid, activate submit button)
});
...
<form>
  <input class="target" type="text" value="Field 1" />
  <select class="target">
    <option value="option1" selected="selected">Option 1</option>
    <option value="option2">Option 2</option>
  </select>
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">     
    $('.target').change(function() {
        alert('Something changed');
        // Try validating form again (if valid, activate submit button)
    });
</script>

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Plan B

Another option is to always have the submit button clickable, but use .submit() to bind it to the form validator. Then if the form IS valid, carry on. If the form IS NOT valid use .preventDefault() to stop the submission of the form..... and you'd display a warning message too, indicating the missing fields.