MVC 2 jQuery validation & ajax form - asp.net-mvc

I want to use jQuery ($.post) to submit my html form, but I want to use the client side validation feature of MVC 2. Currently I hook up the post function to the "OnSubmit" event of the form tag, but I can't hook into the validation, ideally I want to be able to do
if (formIsValid) {
$.post('<%=Url.Action("{some action}")%>'...
}
Please note, Client side validation is working with jQuery.validation, I just can't get it to test if the validation was successful or not before I post my data.
Andrew
The final solution
<%
Html.EnableClientValidation();
using (Html.BeginForm("Register", "Account", FormMethod.Post, new { id = "registrationForm" })) {
%>
...
<button type="submit" onclick="return submitRegistration();">Register</button>
<%
}
%>
<script type="text/javascript">
function submitRegistration() {
if ($("#registrationForm").valid()) {
$.post('<%=Url.Action("{some action}")'...
}
// this is required to prevent the form from submitting
return false;
}
</script>

You can initiate jQuery validation on the button click event. Place the following inside your button-click event-handler:
if ($('form').valid())
//take appropriate action for a valid form. e.g:
$('form').post('<%=Url.Action("{some action}")%>')
else
//take appropriate action for an invalid form
See the Validation plugin documentation for more information.

Related

Client validate non-model bound checkbox while using MVC 2 jQuery Validation

Have: Using ASP.NET MVC 2, DataAnnotationsModel based server validation, and client validation with jQuery. Anything in my model is validated perfectly on the client with jQuery based validation (jQuery.validate and MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js).
Need: Adding an additional HTML <input type="checkbox" id="terms" /> to my form. I need jQuery validation to require that this checkbox is checked AND somehow hook it in with whatever jQuery client script MVC is automagically controlling. Yes, I know it won't validate on the server side, but I don't need or want it to.
Seems like it should be simple but I'm new to MVC, a total beginner at jQuery, and my searches have been coming up blank.
Any help would be appreciated!
Here's a solution. It mimics what mvc does to hook into jQuery validation. So there's a checkbox called Accept that doesn't belong to the model. The script must go after the form and it adds all the validation meta data for that field.
<%
Html.EnableClientValidation(); %>
<% using(Html.BeginForm("Show"))
{ %>
<%= Html.EditorForModel() %>
<div class="editor-field">
<%= Html.CheckBox("Accept", new { #class = "required" })%>
<span class="field-validation-valid" id="Accept_validationMessage"></span>
</div>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
<%} %>
<script type="text/javascript">
window.mvcClientValidationMetadata[0].Fields.push({
FieldName: "Accept",
ReplaceValidationMessageContents: true,
ValidationMessageId: "Accept_validationMessage",
ValidationRules: [{ ErrorMessage: "The Accept field is required.", ValidationType: "required", ValidationParameters: {}}]
});
</script>
Might I suggest using a ViewModel for every View (put all of your dataannotations in there). Then you can create a boolean model property for your checkbox and set it to required.
From there, if you're posting the model back to the controller, you can simply use AutoMapper to map the ViewModel to the needed model, or simply map the properties yourself.
Either way, it is good practice to use a ViewModel for every view. Remember a ViewModel's job is to try and contain everything required in the view. This definitely means that it can and will have other data that is not required in the Model.
Try this
$(document).ready(function() {
//// Assuming your form's ID is 'form0'
$("#form0").submit(function() {
if ($("#terms").attr('checked')) {
return true;
}
else
{
//// Error message if any
return false;
}
});
});

ASP.NET MVC AJAX with HTML.ValidationMessageFor

I'm used to the ASP.NET Webforms easy way of doing AJAX with UpdatePanels. I understand the process is much more artisanal with MVC.
In a specific case, I'm using Data Annotations to validate some form inputs. I use the HTML.ValidationMessageFor helper to show an error message. If I want to use AJAX to post this form and show this error message, what would be the process? Is it possible to keep the HTML.ValidationMessageFor and make it work with AJAX?
Thank you.
Are you using the built-in AJAX methods? For example, are you created the AJAX form with Ajax.BeginForm(...)? If so, it's very easy to show validation messages.
One more thing: do you want to display a validation message for each individual incorrect control, or do you just want to have a validation summary above your form? I'm pretty sure you're asking about displaying an individual message for each control, but I'll include both just in case.
To display an individual message for each incorrect control:
First, you need to put your form inputs inside a Partial View. I'll call that Partial View RegisterForm.ascx.
Next, you should have something like this in your view:
<% using (Ajax.BeginForm("MyAction", null,
new AjaxOptions {
HttpMethod = "POST",
UpdateTargetId = "myForm"
},
new {
id = "myForm"
})) { %>
<% Html.RenderPartial("RegisterForm"); %>
<% } %>
Finally, your Controller Action should look something like this:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult MyAction(CustomViewModel m)
{
if(!m.IsValid) //data validation failed
{
if (Request.IsAjaxRequest()) //was this request an AJAX request?
{
return PartialView("RegisterForm"); //if it was AJAX, we only return RegisterForm.ascx.
}
else
{
return View();
}
}
}
To display only a validation summary above your form:
You should first create a separate ValidationSummary Partial View. Here's what the code of ValidationSummary.ascx should look like:
<%# Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %>
<%= Html.ValidationSummary("Form submission was unsuccessful. Please correct the errors and try again.") %>
Next, inside your view, you should have something like this:
<div id="validationSummary">
<% Html.RenderPartial("ValidationSummary"); %>
</div>
<% using (Ajax.BeginForm("MyAction", new AjaxOptions { HttpMethod = "POST", UpdateTargetId = "validationSummary" })) { %>
<!-- code for form inputs goes here -->
<% } %>
Finally, your Controller Action should resemble this:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult MyAction(CustomViewModel m)
{
if(!m.IsValid) //data validation failed
{
if (Request.IsAjaxRequest()) //was this request an AJAX request?
{
return PartialView("ValidationSummary"); //if it was AJAX, we only return the validation errors.
}
else
{
return View();
}
}
}
Hope that helps!
This article might be helpful:
ScottGu's blog: ASP.NET MVC 2: Model Validation.
The validation used in MVC can be both client and server side. To enable client-side validation use the:
<% Html.EnableClientValidation(); %>
declaration somewhere in your view. This negates the need to use AJAX to post your form to the server and then display the results inline, as users with javascript enabled will have their own clientside validation.

ASP.Net MVC ActionLink

I'm trying to create an ActionLink in one of my views that sends the selected value of a dropdown list to a new action. So far I have this, I just need to find a way to populate the ID on the end of my ActionLink.
<%= Html.DropDownList("StatusDropDown") %>
<%= Html.ActionLink("Apply","Index",new {Controller="Tasks", Action="Index", id="DROPDOWN LIST SECLECTED VALUE"}) %>
Obviously this link would need to be updated whenever the selected index of the drop down is changed. Is this something I need to do in javascript or is there a better way of managing this from within ASP.Net MVC?
Thanks
If you don't want to use form submission (i.e., want the parameter passed as part of the url instead of a form parameter), you'll need to build the url client-side with javascript.
<%= Html.DropDownList("StatusDropDown") %>
<a id="applyLink" href="#">Apply</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
function setHref( elem, val )
{
if (val) {
$(elem).attr( "href", "/Tasks/" + val );
$("#applyLink").unbind("click");
}
else {
$(elem).attr( "href", "#" );
$("#applyLink").click( function() { alert( "No value chosen" ); } );
}
}
$(function() {
var dropdown = $("#StatusDropDown");
dropdown.change( function() {
setHref( this, $(this).val() );
});
setHref( dropdown, null );
});
</script>
A link goes to another page, it is in effect a redirect. The only way to update where that link goes to with reference to the drop down list is with javascript.
It sounds like you want a kind of submit action. In that case you should use a form and a submit button, creating the appropriate handlers in your controller. Remember you can just do a redirect in your controller based upon the submitted value of the form. So something like this:
<form method="post" action="/MyForm">
<input type="select" name="mySelect">
<option value="1">First Option</option>
<option value="2">Second Option</option>
</input>
</form>
And in your controller:
public ActionResult MyForm(int mySelect)
{
return Redirect(String.Format("myurl?id={0}", mySelect));
// Note the above is only preferable if you're going to an external link
// Otherwise you should use the below:
return RedirectToAction("myAction", new { id = mySelect });
}
Obviously in this simplified example, the MyForm proxy to your desired action is redundant, but it illustrates the idea so you can apply it to your specific situation.

ASP.NET MVC Ajax.BeginForm eats params of submit button clicked. Looks like bug

If you are using Ajax.BeginForm() with multiple submit buttons similar to this:
// View.aspx
<% using (Ajax.BeginForm("Action", "Controller",
new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "MyControl", }))
{ %>
<span id="MyControl">
<% Html.RenderPartial("MyControl"); %>
</span>
<% } %>
//MyControl.ascx
<%# Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %>
<input name="prev" type="submit" value="prev" />
<input name="next" type="submit" value="next" />
//...
Everything is submitted to the controller fine but the params for the submit button that was clicked are absent from the Request. In otherwords Request["next"] and Request["prev"] are always null.
I looked in to the JavaScript in Microsoft.MvcAjax.js and it looks like the function Sys_Mvc_MvcHelpers$_serializeForm completely skips over the inputs that are of type 'submit'.
This doesn't seem logical at all. How else can you find out what button has been clicked?
It looks like a bug to me. Is there any logical reason to skip these form parameters?
UPDATE: 2009-11-21
I downloaded MVC Release 2 Preview 2 and looked to see if this problem was fixed.
I did a quick test and found similar results to MVC Release 2 Preview 1.
I don't believe it is fixed yet.
UPDATE: 2009-08-07
I downloaded MVC Release 2 Preview 1 and looked to see if this problem was fixed.
I see a new function in the script MicrosoftMvcAjax.debug.js called _serializeSubmitButton and I see that when Ajax.BeginForm() renders the output there is a onclick event but when this event fires it generates an error "Microsoft JScript runtime error: 'Sys.Mvc.AsyncForm' is null or not an object".
In short it looks like a fix was attempted but it isn't working yet or I need to do something more. The bad news is if it isn't the later then Ajax Forms will be broken for everyone until the fix is complete.
UPDATE: 2009-05-07
I received feedback today from Microsoft confirming that this is a bug. They have logged the defect and said they hope to have it fixed in a future release.
For reference I'm leaving the details of my investigation that I submitted to Microsoft. Appologies for the long post but perhaps it will be useful for anyone trying to create a work around..
There are a couple problems in the Ajax support in MVC. To illustrate, consider the pattern illustrated in several examples on the web:
//===========
// View.aspx
//===========
<% using (Ajax.BeginForm("Action", "Controller",
new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "MyControl", HttpMethod = "POST"}))
{ %>
<span id="MyControl">
<% Html.RenderPartial("MyControl"); %>
</span>
<% } %>
//================
// MyControl.ascx
//================
<%# Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %>
<input name="startIndex" type="hidden" value="0" />
<%= Ajax.ActionLink("Prev", "PrevAction",
new AjaxOptions() { UpdateTargetId="MyControl", HttpMethod="POST"}) %>
<%= Ajax.ActionLink("Next", "NextAction",
new AjaxOptions() { UpdateTargetId="MyControl", HttpMethod="POST"}) %>
//...
Expected:
It is just a list that can the user can page forward and back without updating the entire page.
Given this setup. I expect 2 links labeled "Prev" and "Next". Clicking on "Prev" should fire the PrevAction method in the controller as a post and the value in the hidden field named "startIndex" should be available in the request parameters. I expect similar results when clicking the Next link.
Actual:
The reality is that the request object contains NONE of the form parameters even though it shows that it came in as a POST.
In order to get any of the parameters using action link they must be explicitly supplied through the variation of ActionLink that includes parameters. When this is used the parameters become part of the URL of the link which defeats the purpose of having a POST.
So why is the javascript wrong?
I dug into the javascript code that is used to handle the submit for the example I posted with my question and I now better understand why it doesn't handle it. The reason appears to be related to the way they have wired up events and what I believe is a shortcoming in Internet Explorer.
The way it currently works is that the Ajax.BeginForm() helper class generates a form tag with an onsubmit() function to intercept the form submit event. When the user clicks on a submit button the onsubmit() function fires and recieves parameters, one of which is the event.
The MicrosoftMvcAjax scripts look at the event, bundle up the form properties that are supposed to be submitted and sends the request off to the server. The problem is that per WC3 standards only the successful controls are supposed to be posted. In the case of submit buttons this is the button that was actually clicked. Under internet explorer there is no way to determine which button actually caused the submit event to fire so the script just skips all submit buttons.
(In Firefox the event contains a property called "explictOriginalTarget" which points to the button that actually caused the event in the first place)
Whats the fix?
Microsoft should be fixing it. However if we need something sooner I believe the only option is to hack the MicrosoftMvcAjax scripts to wire up events differently. I have found that the form can be wired to a handle a mousedown event where the button clicked can be saved in a global variable where the onsubmit handler can insert it into the post parameters.
Here is some code that I was testing to illustrate this technique. I have confirmed it works in both IE8 and FireFox but I haven't tried to hack it into the MVC Ajax scripts yet... If I get more time. I may post the results here.
<script type="text/javascript">
var _clicked = "";
function onSubmit(e) {
var targ;
if (!e) var e = window.event;
if (e.target) targ = e.target;
else if (e.srcElement) targ = e.srcElement;
if (targ.nodeType == 3) //defeat Safari bug
targ = targ.parentNode;
alert("OnSubmit:" + _clicked + " was clicked.");
return false;
}
function Click(e) {
var targ;
if (!e) var e = window.event;
if (e.target) targ = e.target;
else if (e.srcElement) targ = e.srcElement;
if (targ.nodeType == 3) //defeat Safari bug
targ = targ.parentNode;
_clicked = targ.name;
return true;
}
<form action="/Home/StandardForm" method="post"
onsubmit="onSubmit(event)" onmousedown="Click(event)">
<input type="submit" name="StdPrev" value="StdPrev" />
<input type="submit" name="StdNext" value="StdNext" />
</form>
In order for your submit buttons to be "successfull" controls as per the specification, they must be defined within the form element:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#successful-controls
If you can't nest your submit buttons inside your form, you'll probably need to use javascript (or jquery) to submit your form and pass in an additional paramater to indicate which button was clicked.
I suppose this has been fixed in MVC 2 (or it was never broken). Just make sure your HTML markup validates. The following example should show it works.
Vote.aspx:
<%# Page Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Vote</title>
</head>
<body>
<%using (Ajax.BeginForm("Vote", "Voting", new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "message" }))
{ %>
<%= Html.Hidden("itemId", "1")%>
<p>I love ASP.NET MVC!</p>
<input type="submit" name="voteValue" value="+" />
<input type="submit" name="voteValue" value="-" />
<%} %>
<p id="message"><%= TempData["message"] %></p>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/MicrosoftAjax.js")%>"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<%= Url.Content("~/Scripts/MicrosoftMvcAjax.js")%>"></script>
</body>
</html>
VotingController.aspx:
using System.Web.Mvc;
namespace Examples.FormWithMultipleSubmitButtons.Controllers
{
public class VotingController : Controller
{
public ViewResult Vote()
{
return View();
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Vote(int itemId, string voteValue)
{
switch(voteValue)
{
case "+":
TempData["message"] = "You voted up.";
break;
case "-":
TempData["message"] = "You voted down.";
break;
default:
TempData["message"] = "Your vote was not recognized.";
break;
}
if(Request.IsAjaxRequest())
{
return Content(TempData["message"].ToString());
}
else
{
return View();
}
}
}
}
I had the same issue today (Oct 8, 2010) with my form with multiple submit buttons. The HTML didn't validate. I cleaned it up. It's still doesn't validate (but less error than the original) and now the value of clicked button is submitted.
A possible workaround could be to have each button in a seperate form routed to different actions on your controller.
Not ideal but could work.
I did the following:
<input id="btnSubmit" name="btnSubmit" type="hidden" value="" />
<input type="submit" name="btnSubmit" value="Delete" id = "btnDelete" onclick="$('#btnSubmit').attr('value','Delete');"/>
<input type="submit" name="btnSubmit" value="Save New" id = "btnSaveNew" onclick="$('#btnSubmit').attr('value','Save New');"/>
<input type="submit" name="btnSubmit" value="Save" id = "btnSave" onclick="$('#btnSubmit').attr('value','Save');"/>
i.e. defined a hidden input type with id of "btnSubmit" and on each button added the onclick event as onclick="$('#btnSubmit').attr('value','Delete');". this seems to work
as I was able to get the value of the button clicked in the controller:
public ActionResult SaveCreateBlot(string btnSubmit)
{
}

How to prevent auto filling posted values in asp.net mvc ajax form

Inside of an asp.net mvc partial view, I have an Ajax form that posts a value and replaces the contents of its parent container with another instance of the form.
Index.aspx view:
<div id="tags">
<% Html.RenderPartial("Tags", Model); %>
</div>
Tags.ascx partial view:
<% using(Ajax.BeginForm("tag", new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "tags" }))
{ %>
Add tag: <%= Html.TextBox("tagName")%>
<input type="submit" value="Add" />
<% } %>
The controller:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Tag(string tagName) {
// do stuff
return PartialView("Tags", ...);
}
The problem is when the new instance of the form returns, the posted value is already stored in the input field. As in, whatever I posted as the 'tagName' will stay in the textbox. Firebug shows that the value is hardcoded in the response.
Is there any way to clear the input textbox's value when returning the partial view?
I've tried:
<%= Html.TextBox("tagName", string.Empty)%>
and
<%= Html.TextBox("tagName", string.Empty, new { value = "" })%>`
neither of which do anything.
EDIT:
I realize there are js solutions, which I may end up having to use, but I was wondering if there were any ways of doing it in the backend?
I'm not sure if this solution is "good enough" for you, but couldn't you just empty the form in a JS callback function from your ajax call? If you're using jQuery on your site, the callback function could look something like this:
function emptyFormOnReturn() {
$(':input').val();
}
I am not entirely sure if it will, but in case the above code also removes the text on your submit button, change the selector to ':input[type!=submit]'.
yes you should use jquery to set values on response
if you change your code to use jquery for ajax operations, you can call you settingvalues function on success callback...example:
http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax/jQuery.ajax#options

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