How to ensure a <select> form field is submitted when it is disabled?

Marquis Wang picture Marquis Wang · Jul 28, 2009 · Viewed 206.9k times · Source

I have a select form field that I want to mark as "readonly", as in the user cannot modify the value, but the value is still submitted with the form. Using the disabled attribute prevents the user from changing the value, but does not submit the value with the form.

The readonly attribute is only available for input and textarea fields, but that's basically what I want. Is there any way to get that working?

Two possibilities I'm considering include:

  • Instead of disabling the select, disable all of the options and use CSS to gray out the select so it looks like its disabled.
  • Add a click event handler to the submit button so that it enables all of the disabled dropdown menus before submitting the form.

Answer

Tres picture Tres · Jul 28, 2009

Disable the fields and then enable them before the form is submitted:

jQuery code:

jQuery(function ($) {        
  $('form').bind('submit', function () {
    $(this).find(':input').prop('disabled', false);
  });
});