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I've got a form like this:
<html>
<body>
<form onSubmit="alert('Just got submitted');">
<p>
Hello: <input class="field" type="text"/><br/>
Goodbye: <input class="field" type="text"/><br/>
</p>
</form>
</body>
</html>
which in one browser submits happily on user pressing enter from one of the fields, and in another browser, doesn't. Oddly, if I remove the second field, it works in both.
My question is really - is it okay to have a form with no explicit submit element? I really like this behaviour.
Having no explicit submit is poor user experience. Your typical end user has, over the past decade, learned a set of principles for website form interaction. Namely, you can tab between fields, you can select lots of checkboxes, and you have a click a button to actually submit your data.
I've tried developing forms in the past that automatically update with JavaScript, and I got countless complaints from users. They wanted a button or they didn't believe it was working. So in that particular case, I kept the form working as it originally had, but added a submit button that really didn't do anything. They were happy.
These days I just build out my forms with normal submit buttons. Not only do users expect it, but it allows for much cleaner progressive enhancement between non-JS enabled browsers.
143
answered Apr 10 '26 06:04
It's certainly more than possible to have a form with no submit element, especially if you use JavaScript events to submit the form. I highly suggest you use the onkeypress event to detect the "enter" key being pressed rather than depending on the browser to just accept the "enter" key if you make a form with no submits, to make it cross-browser compatible.
However, I think it's bad form to leave out a submit button of some sort. (It doesn't necessarily have to be an input of type "submit", could be "button" or an image you click.) It's just a standard to have forms that people fill out submitt via a button, and you're taking that away, which could confuse many users who are used to a button. It definitely violates the principles of Don't Make Me Think by presenting an alternate form to the norm.
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