Combine Validation (js), submit (php) and modal (bootstrap) in form

Question

I am using Bootstrap to create a simple contact form and would like to achieve the following when pressing the "submit" button:

• Validate the form fields using jQuery
• Submit the form if validation passes, using PHP as the processor
• Show a message inside of a Bootstrap modal dialog that says the form has been emailed

Knowing that my PHP and JS knowledge is below average, I am glad to say that I have been able to make all items work separately, but I am not able to combine them...

Could you give me some input?

Validation uses :

var validator = $("#contact").validate({
  ...

PHP uses :

mail()

Both work when submitting the form with a button like this:

<button type="submit" name="submit" id="submitButton" class="btn btn-bcome pull-right">Send</button>

To activate the dialog, I changed the button to:

<button href="#submit" role="button" button type="submit" name="submit" id="submitButton" class="btn btn-bcome pull-right" data-toggle="modal">Send</button>

This makes the modal appear correctly, but validation and submission do not occur.

I have found a related post : jQuery Modal that appears on form submit . But I do not know to adapt this specifically to my case.

---

I have tried to adapt what you told me and this is what I got : Html part :

button href="#submit" role="button" button type="submit" name="submit" id="submitButton" class="btn btn-bcome pull-right" data-toggle="modal">Envoyer</button>

and

<div id="submit" class="modal hide fade" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="myModalLabel" aria-hidden="true">
      <div class="modal-header">
        <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="modal" aria-hidden="true">×</button>
        <h3 id="myModalLabel">Thanks for your mail</h3>
      </div>
      <div class="modal-body">
        <p>We will get back to you soon</p>
      </div>
      <div class="modal-footer">
        <button class="btn" data-dismiss="modal" aria-hidden="true">Close</button>
      </div>
    </div>

In my JS file :

var $validator = {};

$(document).ready(function()
{
    // validate signup form on keyup and submit
    var validator = $("#contact").validate({
       submitHandler: function(form)
        {
            //code to submit your form here
            //code to open your modal here
        errorClass:'error',
        validClass:'success',
        errorElement:'span',
        highlight: function (element, errorClass, validClass) { 
            $(element).parents("div[class='clearfix']").addClass(errorClass).removeClass(validClass);
        }, 
        unhighlight: function (element, errorClass, validClass) { 
            $(element).parents(".error").removeClass(errorClass).addClass(validClass); 
        },
        rules: {
            fname: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 2
            },
            name: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 2
            },
            email: {
                required: true,
                email: true
            },
            message: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 10
            }
        },
        messages: {
            fname: {
                required: '<span class="help-inline">First name.</span>',
                minlength: jQuery.format('<span class="help-inline">2 chars</span>')
            },
            name: {
                required: '<span class="help-inline">Name.</span>',
                minlength: jQuery.format('<span class="help-inline">2 chars</span>')
            },
            email: {
                required: '<span class="help-inline">Email.</span>',
                email: '<span class="help-inline">Ex : name@exemple.com</span>'
            },
            message: {
                required: '<span class="help-block">Message</span>',
                minlength: jQuery.format('<span class="help-block">10 chars</span>')

        $('form').submit(function() {
            if ($validator.numberOfInvalids() > 0) {
                $('#submit').modal('hide');
            } else {
                $('#submit').modal('show');
            }
        }
    });
}
);

I am surely missing something but for the moment, only the modal part is executed and not the validation part or submit form part.

Any idea what I should do to make this work?

Answer 1

If you're using bassastance's jquery validation plugin, you are looking for the submitHandler option, which is defined here: http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation/validate#toptions

$(document).ready(function()
    {
        // validate signup form on keyup and submit
        var validator = $("#contact").validate({
           submitHandler: function(form)
            {
                //code to submit your form here
                //code to open your modal here
            }
        });
    }
);

UPDATE: I'm updating this answer based on further code provided by Fred.

Javascript:

var $validator; //declared for further use later

$(document).ready(function()
{
    // validate signup form on keyup and submit
    $validator = $("#contact").validate({
        errorClass:'error',
        validClass:'success',
        errorElement:'span',
        highlight: function (element, errorClass, validClass) { 
            $(element).parents("div[class='clearfix']").addClass(errorClass).removeClass(validClass);
        }, 
        unhighlight: function (element, errorClass, validClass) { 
            $(element).parents(".error").removeClass(errorClass).addClass(validClass); 
        },
        rules: {
            fname: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 2
            },
            name: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 2
            },
            email: {
                required: true,
                email: true
            },
            message: {
                required: true,
                minlength: 10
            }
        },
        messages: {
            fname: {
                required: '<span class="help-inline">First name.</span>',
                minlength: jQuery.format('<span class="help-inline">2 chars</span>')
            },
            name: {
                required: '<span class="help-inline">Name.</span>',
                minlength: jQuery.format('<span class="help-inline">2 chars</span>')
            },
            email: {
                required: '<span class="help-inline">Email.</span>',
                email: '<span class="help-inline">Ex : name@exemple.com</span>'
            },
            message: {
                required: '<span class="help-block">Message</span>',
                minlength: jQuery.format('<span class="help-block">10 chars</span>')
            }
        },
        submitHandler: function(form) //submitHandler is an option taken by the validate function
        {
            //i put your submission code in here

            $('form').submit(function() {
                if ($validator.numberOfInvalids() > 0) 
                {
                    $('#submit').modal('hide');
                } else 
                {
                    $('#submit').modal('show');
                }
            });
        }
    });
});