Example form handling for jquery for handling submissions from multiple forms on a page depending on which was submitted. The reason you want to catch the submission event is because people can click "enter" and a text input and it will submit the form regardless of your button type.

gistfile1.txt

$('form').submit(function(event){
  event.preventDefault();
	event.stopPropogation(); // same thing

	$(this); // <-- the form that was submitted
	$('input', this); // <-- all the inputs for this form that need validation
	
	$('input', this).each(function(){
		var element = $(this); // <-- this is the current field which can be validated
		if(element.attr('required') == 'required' && element.val().trim() != '' && element.val() ){
			// success thing
		} else {
			// error thing
		}
	})

	return false; 
});