jQuery plugin to serialize a form and also restore/populate the form?
forms, jquery, serialization
Solution
Here's a little something I rolled based on work of others, specifically serializeAnything:
/* jQuery.values: get or set all of the name/value pairs from child input controls
* @argument data {array} If included, will populate all child controls.
* @returns element if data was provided, or array of values if not
*/
$.fn.values = function(data) {
var els = $(this).find(':input').get();
if(typeof data != 'object') {
// return all data
data = {};
$.each(els, function() {
if (this.name && !this.disabled && (this.checked
|| /select|textarea/i.test(this.nodeName)
|| /text|hidden|password/i.test(this.type))) {
data[this.name] = $(this).val();
}
});
return data;
} else {
$.each(els, function() {
if (this.name && data[this.name]) {
if(this.type == 'checkbox' || this.type == 'radio') {
$(this).attr("checked", (data[this.name] == $(this).val()));
} else {
$(this).val(data[this.name]);
}
}
});
return $(this);
}
};
Problem
Is there a jQuery plugin out there that can serialize a form, and then later restore/populate the form given the serialized value? I know the form plugin can serialize as a querystring, but I haven't found anything that will restore the form from the querystring. What I'd like to do is serialize the form values, store as a cookie whenever the form changes, and then restore the form from the cookie (if it exists) when the page first loads. I have found pieces of this puzzle out there (form plugin, cookie plugin, various autosave plugins that don't restore), but before I cobble something together from various parts, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a nice canned solution waiting for me out there. Thanks! Jim