jQuery trigger file input

Question

This is due to a security restriction.

I found out that the security restriction is only when the <input type="file"/> is set to display:none; or is visbilty:hidden.

So i tried positioning it outside the viewport by setting position:absolute and top:-100px; and voilà it works.

see http://jsfiddle.net/DSARd/1/

call it a hack.

Hope that works for you.

this worked for me:

JS:

$('#fileinput').trigger('click');

HTML:

<div class="hiddenfile">
  <input name="upload" type="file" id="fileinput"/>
</div>

CSS:

.hiddenfile {
 width: 0px;
 height: 0px;
 overflow: hidden;
}

>>>Another one that works Cross-Browser:<<<

The Idea is that you overlay an invisible huge "Browse" button over your custom button. So when the user clicks your custom button, he's actually clicking on the "Browse" button of the native input field.

JS Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/5Rh7b/

HTML:

<div id="mybutton">
  <input type="file" id="myfile" name="upload"/>
  Click Me!
</div>

CSS:

div#mybutton {

  /* IMPORTANT STUFF */
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;   

  /* SOME STYLING */
  width:  50px;
  height: 28px;
  border: 1px solid green;
  font-weight: bold
  background: red;
}

div#mybutton:hover {
  background: green;
}

input#myfile {
  height: 30px;
  cursor: pointer;
  position: absolute;
  top: 0px;
  right: 0px;
  font-size: 100px;
  z-index: 2;

  opacity: 0.0; /* Standard: FF gt 1.5, Opera, Safari */
  filter: alpha(opacity=0); /* IE lt 8 */
  -ms-filter: "alpha(opacity=0)"; /* IE 8 */
  -khtml-opacity: 0.0; /* Safari 1.x */
  -moz-opacity: 0.0; /* FF lt 1.5, Netscape */
}

JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#myfile').change(function(evt) {
        alert($(this).val());
    });
});

You can use LABEL element ex.

<div>
    <label for="browse">Click Me</label>
    <input type="file" id="browse" name="browse" style="display: none">//
</div>

This will trigger the input file

I have it working (=tested) in IE8+, recent FF and chrome:

$('#uploadInput').focus().trigger('click');

The key is focusing before firing the click (otherwise chrome ignores it).

Note: you do NEED to have your input displayed and visible (as in, not display:none and not visibility:hidden). I suggest (as many other have before) to absolutely position the input and throw it off screen.

#uploadInput {
    position: absolute;
    left: -9999px;
}

Check out my fiddle.

http://jsfiddle.net/mohany2712/vaw8k/

.uploadFile {
  visibility: hidden;
}

#uploadIcon {
  cursor: pointer;
}

<body>
  <div class="uploadBox">
    <label for="uploadFile" id="uploadIcon">
      <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Icon_-_upload_photo_2.svg/512px-Icon_-_upload_photo_2.svg.png"  width="20px" height="20px"/>
    </label>
    <input type="file" value="upload" id="uploadFile" class="uploadFile" />
  </div>
</body>

adardesign nailed it regarding the file input element being ignored when it is hidden. I also noticed many people shifting element size to 0, or pushing it out of bounds with positioning and overflow adjustments. These are all great ideas.
An alternative way that also seems to work perfectly well is to just set the opacity to 0. Then you can always just set the position to keep it from offsetting other elements as hide does. It just seems a little unnecessary to shift an element nearly 10K pixels in any direction.

Here's a little example for those who want one:

input[type='file']{
    position:absolute;
    opacity:0;
    /* For IE8 "Keep the IE opacity settings in this order for max compatibility" */
    -ms-filter:"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=0)";
    /* For IE5 - 7 */
    filter: alpha(opacity=0);
}

Just for the sake of curiosity, you can do something like you want by dynamically creating an upload form and input file, without adding it to the DOM tree:

$('.your-button').on('click', function() {
    var uploadForm = document.createElement('form');
    var fileInput = uploadForm.appendChild(document.createElement('input'));

    fileInput.type = 'file';
    fileInput.name = 'images';
    fileInput.multiple = true;

    fileInput.click();
});

No need to add the uploadForm to the DOM.

jQuery trigger file input

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javascript

jquery

css

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jQuery trigger file input

Tags:

javascript

jquery

css

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