JQuery Validation plugin: disable validation for specified submit buttons

jqueryjquery-validate

I have a form with multiple fields that I'm validating (some with methods added for custom validation) with Jörn Zaeffere's excellent jQuery Validation plugin. How do you circumvent validation with specified submit controls (in other words, fire validation with some submit inputs, but do not fire validation with others)? This would be similar to ValidationGroups with standard ASP.NET validator controls.

My situation:

It's with ASP.NET WebForms, but you can ignore that if you wish. However, I am using the validation more as a "recommendation": in other words, when the form is submitted, validation fires but instead of a "required" message displaying, a "recommendation" shows that says something along the line of "you missed the following fields…. do you wish to proceed anyways?" At that point in the error container there's another submit button now visible that can be pressed which would ignore the validation and submit anyways. How to circumvent the forms .validate() for this button control and still post?

The Buy and Sell a House sample at http://jquery.bassistance.de/validate/demo/multipart/ allows for this in order to hit the previous links, but it does so through creating custom methods and adding it to the validator. I would prefer to not have to create custom methods duplicating functionality already in the validation plugin.

The following is a shortened version of the immediately applicable script that I've got right now:

var container = $("#<%= Form.ClientID %> div.validationSuggestion");

$('#<%= Form.ClientID %>').validate({          
    errorContainer: container,
    errorLabelContainer: $("ul",container),
    rules: {
        <%= YesNo.UniqueID %>: { required: true },
        <%= ShortText.UniqueID %>: { required: true } // etc.

    },
    messages: {
        <%= YesNo.UniqueID %>: 'A message.',
        <%= ShortText.UniqueID %>: 'Another message.' // etc.
    },
    highlight: function(element, errorClass) {
        $(element).addClass(errorClass);
        $(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").addClass(errorClass);
        $(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").removeClass("valid");
    },
    unhighlight: function(element, errorClass) {
        $(element).removeClass(errorClass);
        $(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").removeClass(errorClass);
        $(element.form).find("label[for=" + element.id + "]").addClass("valid");
    },
    wrapper: 'li'
});

Best Answer

You can add a CSS class of cancel to a submit button to suppress the validation

e.g

<input class="cancel" type="submit" value="Save" />

See the jQuery Validator documentation of this feature here: Skipping validation on submit

EDIT:

The above technique has been deprecated and replaced with the formnovalidate attribute.

<input formnovalidate="formnovalidate" type="submit" value="Save" />
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