Disable Contact Form 7 Button After Submit And Save State To LocalStorage

This article delves into a common challenge faced by web developers: how to enhance the user experience by disabling a form submission button after it's clicked, and preserving this state even after the user refreshes or navigates away from the page. We will focus on a specific scenario using Contact Form 7, a popular WordPress plugin, and leverage jQuery and local storage to achieve this functionality. This ensures that users don't accidentally submit the same form multiple times, which can lead to duplicate entries and a frustrating user experience. By implementing this, you can improve your website's usability and prevent potential data integrity issues.

Understanding the Problem: Preventing Double Submissions

In web forms, especially those handling critical data like contact requests or orders, preventing double submissions is crucial. A user might click the submit button multiple times due to various reasons, such as slow internet connection, uncertainty about the submission status, or simply accidental clicks. This can result in duplicate entries in your database, sending multiple emails, or processing the same order twice. This not only creates extra work for you but can also negatively impact the user experience. Imagine a user submitting a contact form multiple times, receiving multiple confirmation emails, and potentially perceiving your website as buggy or unreliable. To avoid these problems, disabling the submit button after the initial click is a simple yet effective solution. By implementing this, we provide immediate visual feedback to the user that their submission is being processed, and we prevent them from submitting the form again until the page is refreshed or a new form is loaded. This article will guide you through the technical steps of achieving this using Contact Form 7, jQuery, and local storage.

The Role of Contact Form 7, jQuery, and Local Storage

To implement the button disabling functionality, we will use a combination of technologies: Contact Form 7, jQuery, and local storage. Contact Form 7 is a widely used WordPress plugin that simplifies the process of creating and managing contact forms on your website. It provides a user-friendly interface for designing forms, handling submissions, and integrating with email services. jQuery, a fast and feature-rich JavaScript library, will be used to manipulate the DOM (Document Object Model) and handle the button disabling logic. jQuery simplifies common JavaScript tasks such as event handling, animation, and AJAX interactions, making our code more concise and easier to maintain. Finally, local storage, a web browser feature, will allow us to persist the disabled state of the button even after the user refreshes the page or navigates away and returns. Local storage provides a way to store key-value pairs in the user's browser, similar to cookies, but with a larger storage capacity and improved performance. This ensures that the button remains disabled even if the user accidentally closes the tab or their internet connection drops momentarily. By combining these technologies, we can create a robust and user-friendly solution for preventing double form submissions.

Implementing the Solution: Step-by-Step Guide

Now, let's dive into the step-by-step implementation of disabling the submit button after form submission and saving the state to local storage. We will break down the process into manageable steps, providing code snippets and explanations along the way. This will allow you to easily integrate this functionality into your Contact Form 7 forms. The process involves writing JavaScript code that listens for the form submission event, disables the button upon submission, and saves the disabled state to local storage. Additionally, the code needs to check local storage when the page loads and disable the button if it was previously disabled. This ensures that the button remains disabled even if the user refreshes the page or revisits it later.

Step 1: Enqueueing the JavaScript File

The first step is to create a JavaScript file (e.g., form-handler.js) and include it in your WordPress theme. This file will contain the code that handles the button disabling logic. To properly include the JavaScript file, you should enqueue it using WordPress's wp_enqueue_scripts function. This ensures that the script is loaded at the appropriate time and that any dependencies, such as jQuery, are also loaded. You can add the following code to your theme's functions.php file or a custom plugin:

function enqueue_custom_scripts() {
 wp_enqueue_script( 'form-handler', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/js/form-handler.js', array( 'jquery' ), '1.0', true );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'enqueue_custom_scripts' );

This code snippet defines a function enqueue_custom_scripts that enqueues the form-handler.js file. The wp_enqueue_script function takes several arguments: a unique handle for the script (form-handler), the path to the script file, an array of dependencies (in this case, jquery), a version number, and a boolean indicating whether the script should be loaded in the footer (set to true for optimal performance). The add_action function hooks the enqueue_custom_scripts function to the wp_enqueue_scripts action, ensuring that the script is enqueued when WordPress loads the scripts. Make sure to replace /js/form-handler.js with the actual path to your JavaScript file. This step ensures that our JavaScript code will be executed on pages containing Contact Form 7 forms.

Step 2: Adding the jQuery Code

Now, let's add the jQuery code to the form-handler.js file. This code will handle the core logic of disabling the button and saving the state to local storage. The code needs to perform the following actions: listen for the Contact Form 7 form submission event, disable the submit button upon submission, save the disabled state to local storage, and check local storage on page load to disable the button if it was previously disabled. Here's the code:

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
 $('.wpcf7').each(function() {
 var form = $(this);
 var formId = form.attr('id');
 var submitButton = form.find('input[type="submit"]');
 var localStorageKey = 'form_submitted_' + formId;

 // Check local storage on page load
 if (localStorage.getItem(localStorageKey) === 'true') {
 submitButton.prop('disabled', true);
 }

 // Handle form submission
 form.on('wpcf7:beforesubmit', function() {
 submitButton.prop('disabled', true);
 localStorage.setItem(localStorageKey, 'true');
 });

 // Handle form reset (optional)
 form.on('wpcf7:submit', function() {
 setTimeout(function() {
 localStorage.removeItem(localStorageKey);
 submitButton.prop('disabled', false);
 }, 5000); // Re-enable after 5 seconds
 });
 });
});

Let's break down this code snippet. The code is wrapped in a jQuery(document).ready() function, which ensures that the code is executed after the DOM is fully loaded. The $('.wpcf7').each() loop iterates over each Contact Form 7 form on the page. Inside the loop, we get the form element, its ID, and the submit button. A unique localStorageKey is generated for each form based on its ID, allowing us to store the submission state for each form independently. The code then checks local storage using localStorage.getItem(localStorageKey) on page load. If the value is 'true', the submit button is disabled using submitButton.prop('disabled', true). The form.on('wpcf7:beforesubmit', function() { ... }) block handles the form submission event. When the form is submitted, the submit button is disabled, and the 'true' value is saved to local storage. The optional form.on('wpcf7:submit', function() { ... }) block handles the form submission completion event. It uses setTimeout to re-enable the button after 5 seconds and remove the key from localStorage. This allows the user to submit the form again after a short delay. This code provides a robust solution for disabling the button and persisting the state using local storage. Make sure to adjust the timeout value in the setTimeout function to suit your specific needs.

Step 3: Testing the Implementation

After adding the code, it's crucial to test the implementation thoroughly. This ensures that the functionality works as expected and that there are no unexpected side effects. Follow these steps to test the implementation: Load a page containing a Contact Form 7 form. Submit the form. Verify that the submit button is disabled immediately after submission. Refresh the page. Verify that the submit button remains disabled after the page refresh. Wait for the timeout (if implemented) and verify that the button is re-enabled. Submit the form again (if the timeout is implemented). Open your browser's developer console (usually by pressing F12) and check the "Application" or "Storage" tab to see if the form_submitted_ key is present in local storage and its value is correctly set to 'true' or removed after the timeout. Test the functionality in different browsers and devices to ensure cross-browser compatibility. By following these steps, you can ensure that the button disabling functionality is working correctly and provides a seamless user experience. Thorough testing is essential for a smooth and reliable user experience.

Advanced Considerations and Customizations

While the basic implementation covers the core functionality, there are several advanced considerations and customizations that can further enhance the user experience and address specific needs. These include adding visual feedback to the user, handling form validation errors, and providing a way to reset the button state manually.

Adding Visual Feedback

Providing visual feedback to the user after form submission is essential for a good user experience. Simply disabling the button might not be enough, as the user might not immediately understand what happened. Adding a visual cue, such as a loading spinner or a confirmation message, can significantly improve clarity. You can achieve this by adding CSS classes to the button or displaying a message element. For example, you can add a loading spinner next to the button while the form is being submitted and display a success message after the form is successfully submitted. This provides clear and immediate feedback to the user, letting them know that their submission is being processed or has been successfully submitted. Visual feedback is a key element in creating a positive user experience.

Handling Form Validation Errors

The current implementation disables the button regardless of whether the form submission was successful or not. If there are form validation errors, the button will remain disabled even though the form was not actually submitted. To address this, you can modify the code to check for validation errors and re-enable the button if errors are present. Contact Form 7 provides events that can be used to detect validation errors. By listening for these events, you can re-enable the button and allow the user to correct the errors and resubmit the form. This ensures that the user is not prevented from submitting the form due to validation issues. Proper error handling is crucial for a user-friendly form submission process.

Providing a Manual Reset

In some cases, you might want to provide a way for the user to manually reset the button state. For example, you could add a "Reset Form" button that clears the local storage and re-enables the submit button. This can be useful if the user wants to submit the form again after a successful submission or if they encounter any issues. To implement this, you can add a button element to your form and attach a click event handler that clears the local storage and re-enables the submit button. This provides the user with more control over the form submission process. Adding a manual reset option can enhance the flexibility and usability of the form.

Conclusion

In this article, we explored how to disable a form submit button after it's clicked and save the state to local storage using Contact Form 7, jQuery, and local storage. This technique is crucial for preventing double submissions and enhancing the user experience. We covered the step-by-step implementation, from enqueueing the JavaScript file to adding the jQuery code and testing the implementation. We also discussed advanced considerations and customizations, such as adding visual feedback, handling form validation errors, and providing a way to reset the button state manually. By implementing these techniques, you can create more robust and user-friendly forms on your website. Remember that preventing double submissions is essential for data integrity and a positive user experience.