How can I make an entire HTML form "readonly"?

Question

I have two pages with HTML forms. The first page has a submission form, and the second page has an acknowledgement form. The first form offers a choice of many controls, while the second page displays the data from the submission form again with a confirmation message. On this second form all fields must be static.

From what I can see, some form controls can be readonly and all can be disabled, the difference being that you can still tab to a readonly field.

Rather than doing this field by field is there any way to mark the whole form as readonly/disabled/static such that the user can't alter any of the controls?

Answer 1

Wrap the input fields and other stuff into a <fieldset> and give it the disabled="disabled" attribute.

Example (http://jsfiddle.net/7qGHN/):

<form>
    <fieldset disabled="disabled">
        <input type="text" name="something" placeholder="enter some text" />
        <select>
            <option value="0" disabled="disabled" selected="selected">select somethihng</option>
            <option value="1">woot</option>
            <option value="2">is</option>
            <option value="3">this</option>
        </select>
    </fieldset>
</form>

Answer 2

Edit (Jan 5, 24):

👉 Use the inert attribute on the whole <form> container element

The inert attribute can be added to sections of content that should not be interactive. When an element is inert, it along with all of the element's descendants, including normally interactive elements such as links, buttons, and form controls are disabled because they cannot receive focus or be clicked.

Please ignore the below (unrecommended) method

---

Old answer:

Not all form elements can be set to readonly, for example:

• checkboxes
• radio boxes
• file upload
• ...more..

Then the reasonable solution would be to set all form elements' disabled attributes to true, since the OP did not state that the specific "locked" form should be sent to the server (which the disabled attribute does not allow).

Another solution, which is presented in the demo below, is to place a layer on top of the form element which will prevent any interaction with all the elements inside the form element, since that layer is set with a greater z-index value:

DEMO:

var form = document.forms[0], // form element to be "readonly"
    btn1 = document.querySelectorAll('button')[0],
    btn2 = document.querySelectorAll('button')[1]

btn1.addEventListener('click', lockForm)
btn2.addEventListener('click', lockFormByCSS)

function lockForm(){
  btn1.classList.toggle('on');
  [].slice.call( form.elements ).forEach(function(item){
      item.disabled = !item.disabled;
  });
}

function lockFormByCSS(){
  btn2.classList.toggle('on');
  form.classList.toggle('lock');
}

form{ position:relative; } 
form.lock::before{
  content:'';
  position:absolute;
  z-index:999;
  top:0;
  right:0;
  bottom:0;
  left:0;
}

button.on{ color:red; }

<button type='button'>Lock / Unlock Form</button>
<button type='button'>Lock / Unlock Form (with CSS)</button>
<br><br>
<form>
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Some Form</legend>
    <input placeholder='text input'>
    <br><br>
    <input type='file'>
    <br><br>
    <textarea placeholder='textarea'></textarea>
    <br><br>
    <label><input type='checkbox'>Checkbox</label>
    <br><br>
    <label><input type='radio' name='r'>option 1</label>
    <label><input type='radio' name='r' checked>option 2</label>
    <label><input type='radio' name='r'>option 3</label>
    <br><br>
    <select>
      <option>options 1</option>
      <option>options 2</option>
      <option selected>options 3</option>
    </select>
  </fieldset>
</form>

Answer 3

<form inert>

This won't change the styling of the form but will stop all the inputs from being focusable and stop any buttons from being clickable.

Answer 4

You can use this function to disable the form:

function disableForm(formID){
  $('#' + formID).children(':input').attr('disabled', 'disabled');
}

See the working demo here

Note that it uses jQuery.

Answer 5

On the confirmation page, don't put the content in editable controls, just write them to the page.

Answer 6

This is an ideal solution for disabling all inputs, textareas, selects and buttons in a specified element.

For jQuery 1.6 and above:

// To fully disable elements
$('#myForm :input').prop('disabled', true); 

Or

// To make elements readonly
$('#myForm :input').prop('readonly', true); 

jQuery 1.5 and below:

$('#myForm :input').prop('disabled', 'disabled');

And

$('#myForm :input').prop('readonly', 'readonly');

Answer 7

There is no built-in way that I know of to do this so you will need to come up with a custom solution depending on how complicated your form is. You should read this post:

Convert HTML forms to read-only (Update: broken post link, archived link)

EDIT: Based on your update, why are you so worried about having it read-only? You can do it via client-side but if not you will have to add the required tag to each control or convert the data and display it as raw text with no controls. If you are trying to make it read-only so that the next post will be unmodified then you have a problem because anyone can mess with the post to produce whatever they want so when you do in fact finally receive the data you better be checking it again to make sure it is valid.

Answer 8

There's no fully compliant, official HTML way to do it, but a little javascript can go a long way. Another problem you'll run into is that disabled fields don't show up in the POST data

Answer 9

Have all the form id's numbered and run a for loop in JS.

 for(id = 0; id<NUM_ELEMENTS; id++)
   document.getElementById(id).disabled = false; 

Answer 10

A simple need : display non-editable form (that can become editable later on) with minimum code and headache.

If you can't use the 'disabled' attribut (as it erases the value's input at POST), and noticed that html attribut 'readonly' works only on textarea and some input(text, password, search, as far I've seen), and finally, if you don't want to bother with duplicating all your select, checkbox and radio with hidden input logics, you might find the following function or any of his inner logics to your liking :

addReadOnlyToFormElements = function (idElement) {
    
        // textarea an input of type (text password search) work with the html readonly
        $('#' + idElement + ' textarea, #' + idElement + ' input').prop('readonly',true);
    
        // but you still have to destroy their associated objects, as I.E, datepicker (in our old project, datepicker is appended to input where 'Date' is in name attribut, don't ask why)
        $('#' + idElement + ' input[name*="Date"]').datepicker('destroy');
    
        // html readonly don't work on input of type checkbox and radio, neither on select. So, a safe trick is to disable the non-selected items
        $('#' + idElement + ' input[type="checkbox"]:not(:checked), #' + idElement + ' input[type="radio"]:not(:checked)').prop('disabled',true); 
        $('#' + idElement + ' select>option:not([selected])').prop('disabled',true);
    
        // and, on the selected ones, to disable mouse/keyoard events and mimic readOnly appearance
        $('#' + idElement + ' input[type="checkbox"]:checked').prop('tabindex','-1').css('pointer-events','none').css('opacity','0.5');
        $('#' + idElement + ' input[type="radio"]:checked').css('opacity','0.5');
        $('#' + idElement + ' select').css('background-color','#eee');
    }

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

And there's nothing easier than to remove these readonly

removeReadOnlyFromFormElements = function (idElement) {

    // just remove the html readonly on textarea and input
    $('#' + idElement + ' textarea, #' + idElement + ' input').prop('readonly',false);

    // and restore their Objects, as I.E, datepicker
    $('#' + idElement + ' input[name*="Date"]').datepicker();

    // Remove the disabled attribut on non-selected
    $('#' + idElement + ' input[type="checkbox"]:not(:checked), #' + idElement + ' input[type="radio"]:not(:checked)').prop('disabled',false); 
    $('#' + idElement + ' select>option:not([selected])').prop('disabled',false);

    // Restore mouse/keyboard events and remove readOnly appearance on selected ones
    $('#' + idElement + ' input[type="checkbox"]:checked').prop('tabindex','').css('pointer-events','').css('opacity','');
    $('#' + idElement + ' input[type="radio"]:checked').css('opacity','');
    $('#' + idElement + ' select').css('background-color','');
}

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Answer 11

Easiest way

$('#yourform .YOUR_CLASS_FOR_INPUTS').prop('readonly', true);

Answer 12

I'd rather use jQuery:

$('#'+formID).find(':input').attr('disabled', 'disabled');

find() would go much deeper till nth nested child than children(), which looks for immediate children only.

Answer 13

Another simple way that's supported by all browsers would be:

HTML:

<form class="disabled">
  <input type="text" name="name" />
  <input type="radio" name="gender" value="male">
  <input type="radio" name="gender" value="female">
  <input type="checkbox" name="vegetarian">
</form>

CSS:

.disabled {
  pointer-events: none;
  opacity: .4;
}

But be aware, that the tabbing still works with this approach and the elements with focus can still be manipulated by the user.

Answer 14

You can use an opaque layer over the form:

1. Put position: relative on the form
2. Add the transparent blocking div as a child of this form with position: absolute and top, bottom, left, right equal to 0

Answer 15

You add html invisible layer over the form. For instance

<div class="coverContainer">
<form></form>
</div>

and style:

.coverContainer{
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    z-index: 100;
    background: rgba(0,0,0,0);
    position: absolute;
}

Ofcourse user can hide this layer in web browser.

Answer 16

To make a whole fieldset disabled conditionally in angular you can do like this:

 <fieldset [attr.disabled]="isEditable ? null : 'disabled'">