Submit form on pressing Enter with AngularJS

Question

In this particular case, what options do I have to make these inputs call a function when I press Enter?

// HTML view //
<form>
    <input type="text" ng-model="name" <!-- Press ENTER and call myFunc --> />
    <br />
    <input type="text" ng-model="email" <!-- Press ENTER and call myFunc --> />
</form>

// Controller //
.controller('mycontroller', ['$scope',function($scope) {
    $scope.name = '';
    $scope.email = '';
    // Function to be called when pressing ENTER
    $scope.myFunc = function() {
       alert('Submitted');
    };
}])

Answer 1

Angular supports this out of the box. Have you tried ngSubmit on your form element?

<form ng-submit="myFunc()" ng-controller="mycontroller">
   <input type="text" ng-model="name" />
    <br />
    <input type="text" ng-model="email" />
</form>

EDIT: Per the comment regarding the submit button, see Submitting a form by pressing enter without a submit button which gives the solution of:

<input type="submit" style="position: absolute; left: -9999px; width: 1px; height: 1px;"/>

If you don't like the hidden submit button solution, you'll need to bind a controller function to the Enter keypress or keyup event. This normally requires a custom directive, but the AngularUI library has a nice keypress solution set up already. See http://angular-ui.github.com/

After adding the angularUI lib, your code would be something like:

<form ui-keypress="{13:'myFunc($event)'}">
  ... input fields ...
</form>

or you can bind the enter keypress to each individual field.

Also, see this SO questions for creating a simple keypres directive: How can I detect onKeyUp in AngularJS?

EDIT (2014-08-28): At the time this answer was written, ng-keypress/ng-keyup/ng-keydown did not exist as native directives in AngularJS. In the comments below @darlan-alves has a pretty good solution with:

<input ng-keyup="$event.keyCode == 13 && myFunc()"... />

Answer 2

If you want to call function without form you can use my ngEnter directive:

Javascript:

angular.module('yourModuleName').directive('ngEnter', function() {
        return function(scope, element, attrs) {
            element.bind("keydown keypress", function(event) {
                if(event.which === 13) {
                    scope.$apply(function(){
                        scope.$eval(attrs.ngEnter, {'event': event});
                    });

                    event.preventDefault();
                }
            });
        };
    });

HTML:

<div ng-app="" ng-controller="MainCtrl">
    <input type="text" ng-enter="doSomething()">    
</div>

I submit others awesome directives on my twitter and my gist account.

Answer 3

If you only have one input you can use the form tag.

<form ng-submit="myFunc()" ...>

If you have more than one input, or don't want to use the form tag, or want to attach the enter-key functionality to a specific field, you can inline it to a specific input as follows:

<input ng-keyup="$event.keyCode == 13 && myFunc()" ...>

Answer 4

I wanted something a little more extensible/semantic than the given answers so I wrote a directive that takes a javascript object in a similar way to the built-in ngClass:

HTML

<input key-bind="{ enter: 'go()', esc: 'clear()' }" type="text"></input>

The values of the object are evaluated in the context of the directive's scope - ensure they are encased in single quotes otherwise all of the functions will be executed when the directive is loaded(!)

So for example: esc : 'clear()' instead of esc : clear()

Javascript

myModule
    .constant('keyCodes', {
        esc: 27,
        space: 32,
        enter: 13,
        tab: 9,
        backspace: 8,
        shift: 16,
        ctrl: 17,
        alt: 18,
        capslock: 20,
        numlock: 144
    })
    .directive('keyBind', ['keyCodes', function (keyCodes) {
        function map(obj) {
            var mapped = {};
            for (var key in obj) {
                var action = obj[key];
                if (keyCodes.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
                    mapped[keyCodes[key]] = action;
                }
            }
            return mapped;
        }

        return function (scope, element, attrs) {
            var bindings = map(scope.$eval(attrs.keyBind));
            element.bind("keydown keypress", function (event) {
                if (bindings.hasOwnProperty(event.which)) {
                    scope.$apply(function() {
                         scope.$eval(bindings[event.which]);
                    });
                }
            });
        };
    }]);

Answer 5

Another approach would be using ng-keypress ,

<input type="text" ng-model="data" ng-keypress="($event.charCode==13)? myfunc() : return"> 

Submit an input on pressing Enter with AngularJS - jsfiddle

Answer 6

Very good, clean and simple directive with shift + enter support:

app.directive('enterSubmit', function () {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function (scope, elem, attrs) {
            elem.bind('keydown', function(event) {
                 var code = event.keyCode || event.which;
                 if (code === 13) {
                       if (!event.shiftKey) {
                            event.preventDefault();
                            scope.$apply(attrs.enterSubmit);
                       }
                 }
            });
        }
    }
});

Answer 7

If you want data validation too

<!-- form -->
<form name="loginForm">
...
  <input type="email" ng-keyup="$loginForm.$valid && $event.keyCode == 13 && signIn()" ng-model="email"... />
  <input type="password" ng-keyup="$loginForm.$valid && $event.keyCode == 13 && signIn()" ng-model="password"... />
</form>

The important addition here is $loginForm.$valid which will validate the form before executing function. You will have to add other attributes for validation which is beyond the scope of this question.

Good Luck.

Answer 8

Just wanted to point out that in the case of having a hidden submit button, you can just use the ngShow directive and set it to false like so:

HTML

<form ng-submit="myFunc()">
    <input type="text" name="username">
    <input type="submit" value="submit" ng-show="false">
</form>

Answer 9

Use ng-submit and just wrap both inputs in separate form tags:

<div ng-controller="mycontroller">

  <form ng-submit="myFunc()">
    <input type="text" ng-model="name" <!-- Press ENTER and call myFunc --> />
  </form>

  <br />

  <form ng-submit="myFunc()">
    <input type="text" ng-model="email" <!-- Press ENTER and call myFunc --> />
  </form>

</div>

Wrapping each input field in its own form tag allows ENTER to invoke submit on either form. If you use one form tag for both, you will have to include a submit button.

Answer 10

Will be slightly neater using a CSS class instead of repeating inline styles.

CSS

input[type=submit] {
    position: absolute;
    left: -9999px;
}

HTML

<form ng-submit="myFunc()">
    <input type="text" ng-model="name" />
    <br />
    <input type="text" ng-model="email" />
    <input type="submit" />
</form>

Answer 11

FWIW - Here's a directive I've used for a basic confirm/alert bootstrap modal, without the need for a <form>

(just switch out the jQuery click action for whatever you like, and add data-easy-dismiss to your modal tag)

app.directive('easyDismiss', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function ($scope, $element) {

            var clickSubmit = function (e) {
                if (e.which == 13) {
                    $element.find('[type="submit"]').click();
                }
            };

            $element.on('show.bs.modal', function() {
                $(document).on('keypress', clickSubmit);
            });

            $element.on('hide.bs.modal', function() {
                $(document).off('keypress', clickSubmit);
            });
        }
    };
});