Two separate forms (different form actions) and one submit button?

Question

This is beyond both making sense and my control. That being said here is my dilema. I need to have two separate forms, each using a different PHP script that I cannot modify to process them. I need to have both of these forms share the same submit button. Here is a simplified version of the html. Form 1

<div id="formOne>
  <form name="returning" method="post" action="PHPscript1.php">
    <label>Are you a returning user?</label>
    <input type="text" name="retUser" id="retUser" />
  </form>
</div>

<div id="formTwo">
 <form name="newUser" method="post" action="PHPscript2.php">
  <label>Are you a new user, register here</label>
  <label>First Name</label>
  <input type="text" name="fname" id="fname" />
  <label>Last Name</label>
  <input type="text" name="lname" id="lname" />
  <label>Email</label>
  <input type="text" name="email1" id="email1" />
 </form>
</div>

<div id="submitContain">
 <input type="submit" id="sbtBtn" value="submmit" />
</div>

I think I could possibly switch the submit script by checking the input's value?

$("#sbtBtn").click(function() {
 if($("#retUser").val().is('') {
   do something;
 } else if .....
});

I will also need simple validation on these and know Ill have to do all this via jQuery's AJAX function. Any advice is much appreciated. I don't sign the checks at work, so this is how it is.

thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Not ideal, but you can call the .submit() for the appropriate form based on your if check, like this:

$("#sbtBtn").click(function() {
  if($("#retUser").val()) {      //check if #retUser has a value
    $("#formOne form").submit();
  } else {
    $("#formTwo form").submit();
  }
});

Answer 2

Yuck, there must be quite a story behind having to do this.

Yes, what you have would work. You would want the "do something" line to be replaced with $('#formOne').submit();, and the other with formTwo.

Something like:

$("#sbtBtn").click(function() {
 if($("#retUser").val()) {
   $('#formOne').submit();
 } elseif ($("#email1").val()) {
  $('#formTwo').submit();
 } else {
  // Don't do anything.
 }
});

jQuery validation here: http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/validation#Validate_forms_like_you.27ve_never_been_validating_before.21