Ok, because I am such a noob and have no idea how javascript works... My thinking was flawed. I am halfway there now. I have taken one of the poster's suggestions and set up a function and then in the html form tag, I call it. This works. I thought that I needed to have an id selector to have JQuery trigger but that isn't the case. I'm sorry. I know I am not making any sense at all but please bear with me, I'm trying. :)

Now that I have the form pointing to the javascript/jquery script. I now need to fix the jquery. Here is the code.

function doSave(){
  $(function() {
    $('.error').hide();
    $("#dfar").click(function() {
      $('.error').hide();

    var textArea = $('#dfarReport');
    if (textArea.val() == "") {
    alert('sd');
      textArea.show();
      textArea.focus();
    return false;
    }

For some reason, even though I press the submit button and have included the id selector of the text area I cannot see the alert. Can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

Ok, because I am such a noob and have no idea how javascript works... My thinking was flawed. I am halfway there now. I have taken one of the poster's suggestions and set up a function and then in the html form tag, I call it. This works. I thought that I needed to have an id selector to have JQuery trigger but that isn't the case. I'm sorry. I know I am not making any sense at all but please bear with me, I'm trying. :)

Now that I have the form pointing to the javascript/jquery script. I now need to fix the jquery. Here is the code.

function doSave(){
  $(function() {
    $('.error').hide();
    $("#dfar").click(function() {
      $('.error').hide();

    var textArea = $('#dfarReport');
    if (textArea.val() == "") {
    alert('sd');
      textArea.show();
      textArea.focus();
    return false;
    }

For some reason, even though I press the submit button and have included the id selector of the text area I cannot see the alert. Can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

• javascript
• jquery

Share Improve this question Follow edited May 28, 2009 at 10:24 user109162 asked May 28, 2009 at 7:15 user109162user109162 14744 silver badges1616 bronze badges 7

• you are talking about "this javascript submit", "and it uses a javascript submit()" . Could you please give some more details on this? Where is the wysiwyg using the submit() ? And is it correct to say that you want: - edit text in a wysiwyg-editor - validate the entered data using jQuery - submit the data to the server Is this correct? – Natrium Commented May 28, 2009 at 7:33
• Hi Natrium. Yes, I want only to validate that the textarea is not blank. It is really the only part on the form that requires validation. I posted the ONLY save function I could find in the editor above in my original post. – user109162 Commented May 28, 2009 at 7:37
• ok, cool. But I still don't really know what your problem exactly is... Is it the validating? The submitting? – Natrium Commented May 28, 2009 at 7:42
• It is the submitting I am having a problem with and now, I am also stumped on how to echo an error image if the user doesn't enter something into the textarea. I guess I should take this one step at a time though. I first need to get the data over to the JQ script. – user109162 Commented May 28, 2009 at 7:47
• @nutjob - please can you edit your question to include additional detail and not remove previous details as otherwise the context of answers cannot be followed by other users new to your question, who may be able to help you – Russ Cam Commented May 28, 2009 at 10:04

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5 Answers 5

Sorted by: Reset to default 3

ok, I think you'll need this:

$(document).ready(function(){

    $("form").submit(function(){
        var textArea = $('#dfarReport');

        if (textArea.val() == "") {
            textArea.show();
            textArea.focus();
            return false;
        }
        else // you'll need to add the else and the return true
        {
            return true; 
        }
    });

});

you need to return true when the form is valid.

More info: http://docs.jquery./Events/submit

But make sure that you validate the data on the server as well!

Change button to

<script>
function doSave()
{
   // save data using jQuery
}
</script>
<input type="button" value="Save" onclick="doSave(); return false;">

or

You can change the form with

<form onsubmit="doSave(); return false;">

You could get the textarea by

$('textarea')

If it's the only one on your page.

You just need to call submit on the form that the textarea is contained within

EDIT:

After reading your update, you just want to validate that the textarea is not blank before submitting the form. You just need to set up the validation

var textArea = $('#results'); //Get the textarea

if (textArea.val() == "") {
    textArea.show();
    textArea.focus();
return false;
}
// perform the form submit here as textarea is not blank

Could you post the whole object where you have got the code beginning with

 case "Save":

from? It would probably be a good idea to use that object to perform the submit.

EDIT 2:

In regard to your ment about the page being refreshed, submitting the form causes the page to be POSTed. It sounds like you want to POST data using AJAX.

Take a look at jQuery's $.ajax() mand

You could do something like

$(document).ready(function(){
    $("#submit_btn").click(function(){
        mySubmit($("#myForm")) ; // call your existing javascript submit routine
    });
});

or if you prefer,

$(document).ready(function(){
    $("#myForm").submit(function(){
        mySubmit($("#myForm")) ; // call your existing javascript submit routine
    });
});

please post the code you use.

You edited like 3x and there's always a different approach.

Ok, if you want to use the code as you defined in your first post right now, you 'll have to do this:

function doSave(){
  $(function() {
    $('.error').hide();
    $("#dfar").click(function() {
      $('.error').hide();

    var textArea = $('#dfarReport');
    if (textArea.val() == "") 
    {
      alert('sd');
      textArea.show();
      textArea.focus();
    return false;
    }
    else
    {
        return true;
    }