Submit jQuery UI dialog on <Enter>

I don't know if there's an option in the jQuery UI widget, but you could simply bind the keypress event to the div that contains your dialog...

$('#DialogTag').keypress(function(e) {
    if (e.keyCode == $.ui.keyCode.ENTER) {
          //Close dialog and/or submit here...
    }
});

This'll run no matter what element has the focus in your dialog, which may or may not be a good thing depending on what you want.

If you want to make this the default functionality, you can add this piece of code:

// jqueryui defaults
$.extend($.ui.dialog.prototype.options, { 
    create: function() {
        var $this = $(this);

        // focus first button and bind enter to it
        $this.parent().find('.ui-dialog-buttonpane button:first').focus();
        $this.keypress(function(e) {
            if( e.keyCode == $.ui.keyCode.ENTER ) {
                $this.parent().find('.ui-dialog-buttonpane button:first').click();
                return false;
            }
        });
    } 
});

Here's a more detailed view of what it would look like:

$( "#dialog-form" ).dialog({
  buttons: { … },
  open: function() {
    $("#dialog-form").keypress(function(e) {
      if (e.keyCode == $.ui.keyCode.ENTER) {
        $(this).parent().find("button:eq(0)").trigger("click");
      }
    });
  };
});

I don't know about simpler, but ordinarily you would track which button has the current focus. If the focus is changed to a different control, then the "button focus" would remain on the button that had focus last. Ordinarily, the "button focus" would start on your default button. Tabbing to a different button would change the "button focus". You'd have to decide if navigating to a different form element would reset the "button focus" to the default button again. You'll also probably need some visual indicator other than the browser default to indicate the focused button as it loses the real focus in the window.

Once you have the button focus logic down and implemented, then I would probably add a key handler to the dialog itself and have it invoke the action associated with the currently "focused" button.

EDIT: I'm making the assumption that you want to be able hit enter anytime you are filling out form elements and have the "current" button action take precedence. If you only want this behavior when the button is actually focused, my answer is too complicated.

I did such way... ;) Hope it will helpful for somebody..

$(window).keypress(function(e) {
    if ((e.which && e.which == 13) || (e.keyCode && e.keyCode == 13)) {
        $(".ui-dialog:visible").find('.ui-dialog-buttonpane').find('button:first').click();
        return false;
    }
});

This should work to trigger the click of the button's click handler. this example assumes you have already set up the form in the dialog to use the jquery.validate plugin. but could be easily adapted.

open: function(e,ui) {
    $(this).keyup(function(e) {
        if (e.keyCode == 13) {
           $('.ui-dialog-buttonpane button:last').trigger('click');
        }
    });
},
buttons: {
    "Submit Form" : function() {
            var isValid = $('#yourFormsID').valid();
            // if valid do ajax call
            if(isValid){
               //do  your ajax call here. with serialize form or something...

            }
}

if you know the button element selector :

$('#dialogBox').dialog('open');
$('#okButton').focus();

Should do the trick for you. This will focus the ok button, and enter will 'click' it, as you would expect. This is the same technique used in native UI dialogs.

   $("#LogOn").dialog({
       modal: true,
       autoOpen: false,
       title: 'Please Log On',
       width: 370,
       height: 260,
       buttons: { "Log On": function () { alert('Hello world'); } },
       open: function() { $(this).parents('.ui-dialog-buttonpane button:eq(0)').focus();}
   });