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Passing a form input into a chat

Ive created a simple html form with a text input and a submit button. I was told that with a little javascript, I could make it so when users fill out that input and click the submit button, it would open up the live chat and automatically have their submission as the first message in the live chat. Here's my form:
<form name="question">
<input type="text" name="important">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
I was told I have to include the api with the 'say' function ( https://api.zopim.com/files/meshim/widget/controllers/LiveChatAPI-js.html#say ). I've got this far:
<script>
$zopim(function() {
$zopim.livechat.say('SOMETHING GOES HERE');
});
</script>
But their 'say' example uses this link rather than an input:
Order orange banana
I'm not sure how to edit that code to use my form input instead of a static link.
Any ideas? Thanks!

What you are seeing in the reference from their docs just executes the say function when you click on it. You could simply add a click listener to the submit button and then get the value of the input and pass that to the .say function.
Note: I commented out the zopim parts as they technically don't matter here as we are simply trying to get some values from an input.
Example:
//$zopim(function(){
$('input[type="submit"]').on('click', function(e){
e.preventDefault(); // prevent hte form from redirecting
let message = $('input[name="important"]').val();
console.log(message);
//$zopim.livechat.say(message);
});
//});
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<form name="question">
<input type="text" name="important">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

The connection to contact form might not be needed after all:
This is what fabricated from the above mentioned
this doesnt work, however, if anyone who knows what they are doing could take a look at it.
$zopim(function(){
$('input[type="submit"]').on('click', function(e){
e.preventDefault(); // prevent hte form from redirecting
var important = $('#amount').val();
if($.isNumeric(important)) {
{if( important < 30) { $('.error').html('We only buy 20 or more.').show();
} else
var message = 'I would like to sell ' + important '.';
$('.error').html('').hide(); $zopim.livechat.say(message);
let message = $('input[name="important"]').val();
console.log(message);
$zopim.livechat.say(message);
});
});
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"> </script>
<form name="question">
<input type="number" placeholder="Amount" name="important">
<input type="submit" value="Start chat">
</form>

Form in not sending the button data

I have a strange behaviour in my form, it sends the data from the textboxes but it doesn't send the button data.
This is my form:
<form name="login_registro" method="POST" id="login_registro">
<input type="text" id="username" name="username" value="">
<input type="text" id="password" name="password">
<input type="submit" name="hacer_login" style="width:auto; height:auto; padding:5px;" class="button" onclick="submitForm('{{matches|last}}/entrar')" value="entrar">
<input type="submit" name="registro" style="width:auto; height:auto; padding:5px;" class="button" onclick="submitForm('{{matches|last}}/registro')" value="regístrate gratis!" >
</form>
The submit function:
<script type="text/javascript">
function submitForm(action) {
document.getElementById('login_registro').action = action;
document.getElementById('login_registro').submit();
}
</script>
In the two pages (entrar and registro) I did a print_R($_POST); and it only shows the two inputs, username and password. It doesn't shows the button pressed.
If I remove the onclick function, and add an action="page.php" it sends the two inputs plus the button pressed.
I know I can do a workaround, but I would like to know why this happend. Thanks.
PS: I commented all jquery.

Your problem here is that using onclick and submitting the form, will submit twice because the submit button already sends the form, and you add form.submit()
Use onsubmit="return submitForm('actionName')". If you return true at the end of the function, the form will get submitted. If you return false, the submission will be cancelled.
You can do this more elegantly by not setting the action dynamically and sending it as a field of the form, or parameter (set through the submitForm function), but this implies changes to your server-side code.

function submitForm(action) {
document.getElementById('login_registro').action = action;
}
I didn't understand at all your answer #Vicentiu Bacioiu, but you gave me a cue. How you said the form is submitted twice, so removing the line where it submit the form in the function worked for me.

Difference between form.submit() and having an input with type of "submit"

I have a HTML page containing a form. I want to make some fields "required". The problem is that I'm not using a <input type="submit"> in my form, instead, I use a Javascript function to submit the form because I need to send a Javascript variable to my server. Here is my code:
<form action="/toServer">
Username: <input type="text" name="usrname" required>
<input type="button" onclick="submitForm(this.form)" value="Submit">
</form>
var submitForm = function(frm){
var qstNbr = document.getElementById('hiddenField');
qstNbr.value = someJsVariable;
frm.submit();
}
So, Even is I have the required attribute in my input but the form is still being submitted even if I don't enter anything in the input.
Here is a JSFiddle of how I want my form to behave when clicking on the button without entering anything.
Anyone knows how form.submit() is different from having an <input> of type="submit" ?
EDIT: After following user2696779's answer and doing a little modification, here's the final working code:
<form action="/toServer">
Username: <input type="text" name="usrname" required>
<input type="submit" onclick="submitForm(this.form)" value="Submit">
</form>
var submitForm = function(frm){
if (frm.checkValidity()) {
var qstNbr = document.getElementById('hiddenField');
qstNbr.value = someJsVariable;
frm.submit();
}
}

Your current HTML input button isn't a submit type, it's a button type. The requred attribute on your input element is therefore ignored. To change this, change your button's type to submit:
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
Browsers which support the required attribute will now display a warning when the button is clicked:
JSFiddle demo.

Submitting using javascript will not trigger any validation. If you want to submit using a regular button + javascript and still have validation, you may use HTML5's checkValidity function to verify form fields, or the entire form.
For example, using JQuery:
if(!$('form')[0].checkValidity()) {
alert('not valid');
}
else {
$('form').submit();
}
See fiddle for working example: http://jsfiddle.net/8Kmck/2/

how to submit the values in the form in javascript when there are 2 submit values?

I have one form where there are 2 inputs those are submit type of inputs like this.
<form>
<input type="text" name="payee" value="">
<input type="text" name="amount" value="">
<input type="text" name="date" value="">
<input type="submit" name="deposit" value="Distribute">
<input type="submit" name="distribute" value="Deposit">
</form>
In jQuery like this:
$("form submit").click(function() {
// i wrote code.
}
If I click on the deposit button some action should occur. If I click on the distribute button some other action should occur.

First of all you need to change your submit inputs to buttons (or at least one of them) as 2 submit buttons in 1 form is invalid. Then give each button its' own Id.
<input type="button" name="deposit" value="Distribute" id="distribute">
<input type="button" name="distribute" value="Deposit" id="deposit">
Then, in jQuery you can then use the Id of each button to run specific code when it is clicked, like this:
$("#distribute").click(function() {
// code to run when distribute is clicked
}
$("#deposit").click(function() {
// code to run when deposit is clicked
}

insert another input type :
<input type="hidden" name="hf" id="hf" value="">
and
$("form :submit").click(function() {
if ($(this).attr('id')=='distribute') $("#hf").val('sent by distribute');
else $("#hf").val('sent by deposit');
}
and in the server you can see who send by reading the hiddenField value ( hf)

You can add a custom attribute on your buttons in document.ready function and on click of the button you can identify which button has posted an request to form.
Example to add custom attribute
<input type="submit" id="deposit" value="Distribute">
<input type="submit" id="distribute" value="Deposit">
$(function () {
$("#deposit").attr('isDeposit','1');
$("#distribute").attr('isDeposit','0');
});
and on submit click
$("form submit").click(function()
{
var identifyButton = $(this).attr('isDeposit');
}
some thing like this.

Try to use the jQuery submit() function, like this:
$('#deposit').submit(function(){
//Code to run
});
It's better because you can cancel the client event, if some field is wrong.
http://api.jquery.com/submit/
You don't need a plugin to do it, however there's a lot of them:
http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/55-jquery-form-plugins-to-download-and-use/

submit text field on enter press (AJAX)

I have a search that operates by AJAX. It works perfectly well when the user presses the search button, the problem is... if the user presses enter... it submit the form rather than executing the AJAX javascript function. How can I make the Enter button call my AJAX function as opposed to submitting the form?

Use the form's onsubmit event to execute your ajax call and make the button into a submit button if it isn't already.
Example HTML
<form action="/search.php" onsubmit="submitAjaxQuery(event)">
<input type="text" name="keywords" />
<button type="submit">Go!</button>
</form>
Example JS
function submitAjaxQuery(event)
{
if (event.preventDefault)
event.preventDefault();
else
event.cancel = true;
// run ajax calling function here.
}

Here is a simple DOM way to handle this:
<form action="javascript:void(0)">
<input type="text" />
<input type="submit" onclick="doSomething(this.form)">
</form>
<script>
function doSomething(form){
alert('form submitted');
}
</script>
Place the cursor in the input field, and either if you click the button or type enter, the form is submitted by javascript (not the page)

Trap it in the onSubmit method of the form and return false.

With jQuery:
jQuery("#myform").submit(function() {
callAJAXFunction();
return false;
});

The correct way is to let the non-javascript users use the form submit with page refresh but a javascript call for those with javascript:
<form action="yourscript.php" method="post" onsubmit="doSomething(this.form); return false;">
<input type="text" />
<input type="submit" />
</form>
<script>
function doSomething(form){
alert('form submitted');
}
</script>