Disabling form fields with jQuery

I can't count the number of times I have dynamically disabled form fields with Javascript. One of the most common cases is disabling a button after it's form is submitted so that the user doesn't try to submit the form multiple times. I use jQuery almost exclusively for DOM manipulation, and I have written variations of the following code many times.

var button = $("#the-button");
$("#the-form").submit(function (event) {
    button.attr("disabled", "disabled");
    // ... Maybe some other stuff too ...
});

Judging by the amount of people who also write similar code snippets, I'm surprised John Resig and company haven't already included a helper for this behavior. In fact, today, upon realizing that I had written this code so many times, I actually assumed that something like $("#the-button").disable() must already exist and I just hadn't crossed paths with it yet. But I was wrong, so I have written it myself, and hopefully others will find this useful as well.

(function ($) {
    // Disable a form field.
    $.fn.disable = function () {
        return this.attr("disabled", "disabled");
    };

    // Enable it again.
    $.fn.enable = function () {
        return this.removeAttr("disabled");
    };
}(jQuery));

So when we update our example, we end up with the following, but of course $(selector).disable() and $(selector).enable() will work with all form elements, not just buttons.

var button = $("#the-button");
$("#the-form").submit(function (event) {
    button.disable();

    // ... and if we want to enable it again:
    button.enable();
});

Knock yourself out.