Preventing browser's default actions in LiveView

Questions / Help
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1

Hello! I hope you’re all enjoying your summer! (or winter if you live in the southern hemisphere)

Suppose I have a key event binding on a text input field in a form in liveview:

 <%= text_input(@form, "text_input", phx_keyup: "keyup" %>

I can handle the key event in my live view code easily. However, hitting certain keys may trigger some unwanted default action in the browser. For example, hitting “Enter” may trigger a form submit.

I can prevent these default actions using client hooks. I can capture the key event in JS and then call event.preventDefault() before sending the event to my liveview using pushEvent(). Although this works, it is less clean and more complex than doing everything in liveview.

So my questions are:

  1. Can browser’s default actions be prevented directly in LV without using client hooks? I suspect this is not possible.
  2. If it’s not possible, would it make sense to add a LV binding that disables default actions? Something like: phx-prevent-default. Would anybody else find this useful? If not, why? :slight_smile:

Thanks for any comment!

4 Likes
2

Ha - found this looking for a solution. So looks like it will be a hook unless someone has a better idea…

1 Like
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Thanks. If you find a better way to do it I’d be interested

4

One approach that I have used in the past to get around the “Submit form on enter” is described in this StackOverflow post: jquery - Prevent users from submitting a form by hitting Enter - Stack Overflow

It boils down to placing a disabled invisible submit button before a visible submit button in the DOM, which will prevent the form from submitting on Enter.

1 Like
5

@Xty yes that works thanks. It’s a good old trick :+1: However, that requires the ability to modify the form. My use case is a bit different: I’m developing an input component that will be used as a library by others, and I would like the component to be able to say “don’t submit on enter” because it uses the enter key as part of its internal behavior. Hooks work fine for that, and as far as I know, they are the only option for now.

1 Like
6

This worked for me.

<:actions>
  <.button phx-disable-with="Saving..." disabled={true} class="hidden">Disable Enter to Submit</.button>
  <.button phx-disable-with="Saving..." disabled={@saved}>Save</.button>
</:actions>