Submitting a form by hitting return when the submit button is hidden; works in Firefox, does nothing in Chrome

Question

I have a form with some input fields and a hidden submit button (hidden via style="display:none").

When you hit the return key when an input field is focused in Firefox, the form submits.

However in Chrome, when you hit return, nothing happens. I was wondering, how do you add this functionality back to Chrome?

Here's the form, take a look at it in Chrome: http://jsfiddle.net/B59rV/2/

<form method="post"  action="/xxxx" accept-charset="UTF-8">

    <input type="hidden" value="SSjovFqEfRwz2vYDIsB6JRdtLAuXGmnT+tkyZnrtqEE=" name="authenticity_token">

    <div class="input text_field">
    <label>Email</label>
    <input type="text" size="30" name="user_session[email]" />
  </div>

  <div class="input text_field">
    <label>Password</label>
    <input type="password" size="30" name="user_session[password]" />
  </div>


    <input type="submit" value="Sign In" style="display: none;" >

</form>

Answer 1

I have literally no idea why it's not working in Chrome. I think it's a bug.

However, it is somehow to do with that display: none .

I found a nasty, horrible (!!) workaround:

input[type="submit"] {
    position: absolute;
    top: -1000px
}

Don't hide it: instead, position it off the screen.

Live Demo - works in Chrome.

Answer 2

Tested in Chrome 22 and Firefox 18 perhaps this is the best workaround

.hide-submit {
    position: absolute;
    visibility: hidden;
}

<button type="submit" class="hide-submit">Ok</button>

Or a more generic way

input[type=submit].hide,
button[type=submit].hide {
    display: block;
    position: absolute;
    visibility: hidden;
}

<input type="submit" class="hide">Go</input>

This basically hides the element in plain sight, no need to push it outside the screen

Answer 3

The best way to do this is:

<input type="submit" hidden />

Example:

 <form onSubmit="event.preventDefault(); alert('logging in!')"> <label for="email">email:</label> <input type="email" name="email" required /> <label for="password">password:</label> <input type="password" name="password" required /> <input type="submit" hidden /> <p>Press enter to log in</p> </form>

Answer 4

Probably a security "feature", although I haven't found a definitive explanation yet. I tried http://jsfiddle.net/B59rV/2/ without the password field and the alert occurs as expected. Same thing happens in IE8 for what it's worth. Those are the only browsers I have on this machine, so haven't tested on any others.

Answer 5

The only workaround i found, at least as dirty as positioning it out of the screen, is width:0; height:0; width:0; height:0; : somehow, Chrome doesn't interpret it like a hidden element

Answer 6

This is like Pioul's answer but I needed to do the following for a input[type=file] element:

position:absolute; //this helps the "hidden" element not disrupt the layout
width:0;
height:0;
// For <= IE7 a 1px piece of the form element still shows
// hide it with opacity=0; Tested element was input:file.
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(opacity=0);

NOT tested with input[type=text]

Just another approach but I don't think this is much better than the accepted answer.