EE3 Channel Forms: Save as Draft & Publish Buttons

Question

I would like to give users the option to "Save as Draft" or "Publish" at the end of a Channel Forms entry.

Is there a way to attach a status to a button? Has anyone done something like this?

Answer 1

Submit buttons can have a name and value, too. And if you use actual <button> elements, the value can be different from what's displayed on the button (unlike using <input type="button" />).

Take this simplified example (just using a regular old form):

<form action="" method="post">
    <input type="text" name="title" />
    <button type="submit" name="status" value="draft">Save as draft</button>
    <button type="submit" name="status" value="open">Publish</button>
</form>

If you click the 'Save as draft' button, the form will send along status=draft. If you click the 'Publish' button, the form will send status=open instead. If you hit return in the text field (submitting the form), the value of the first submit-button will be posted.

This is true for any web form (or at least apache/php), so it should work for EE's Channel Form, too.

Alternatively, you could just use a single save-button and add a checkbox to the form to enable 'save as draft', and apply the status to that field, ie.

<label>
    <input type="checkbox" name="status" value="draft">
    save as draft
</label>

...and status=draft will be posted if the checkbox is ticked.