First, I'd add a hidden input to your form to track the state of the form. Then, I'd use this jQuery snippet to set the value of the hidden input when something on the form changes:
Since you mentioned you only need this for a click, you can simply modify my original code to this:
$("input, select").click(function(){
// A form element was clicked
});
EDIT #2
Ok, you can set a global that is set once something has been changed like this:
var FORM_HAS_CHANGED = false;
$('#mybutton').click(function() {
if (FORM_HAS_CHANGED) {
// The form has changed
}
});
$("input, select").change(function(){
FORM_HAS_CHANGED = true;
});
This rigs a change event handler to inputs in the form, if any of them change it uses .data() to set a changed value to true, then we just check for that value on the click, this assumes that #mybutton is inside the form (if not just replace $(this).closest('form') with $('#myForm')), but you could make it even more generic, like this:
If you want to check if the form data, as it is going to be sent to the server, have changed, you can serialize the form data on page load and compare it to the current form data:
$(function() {
var form_original_data = $("#myform").serialize();
$("#mybutton").click(function() {
if ($("#myform").serialize() != form_original_data) {
// Something changed
}
});
});
There is hidden property for each input element on the form that you can use to determine whether or not the value was changed.
Each type of input has it's own property name. For example
for text/textarea it's defaultValue
for select it's defaultSelect
for checkbox/radio it's defaultChecked
Here is the example.
function bindFormChange($form) {
function touchButtons() {
var
changed_objects = [],
$observable_buttons = $form.find('input[type="submit"], button[type="submit"], button[data-object="reset-form"]');
changed_objects = $('input:text, input:checkbox, input:radio, textarea, select', $form).map(function () {
var
$input = $(this),
changed = false;
if ($input.is('input:text') || $input.is('textarea') ) {
changed = (($input).prop('defaultValue') != $input.val());
}
if (!changed && $input.is('select') ) {
changed = !$('option:selected', $input).prop('defaultSelected');
}
if (!changed && $input.is('input:checkbox') || $input.is('input:radio') ) {
changed = (($input).prop('defaultChecked') != $input.is(':checked'));
}
if (changed) {
return $input.attr('id');
}
}).toArray();
if (changed_objects.length) {
$observable_buttons.removeAttr('disabled')
} else {
$observable_buttons.attr('disabled', 'disabled');
}
};
touchButtons();
$('input, textarea, select', $form).each(function () {
var $input = $(this);
$input.on('keyup change', function () {
touchButtons();
});
});
};
Now just loop thru the forms on the page and you should see submit buttons disabled by default and they will be activated ONLY if you indeed will change some input value on the form.