Trigger required field check without saving

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Can I cause a form/model validation without saving?. I would like to be able to call some JS method to cause a Field Editor in a popup to be validated, without actually saving it.  This is so that a snippet that I’m running, from a multi-step action on a popup button, can verify that the page is valid before it goes and update a series of other fields on the model prior to the save.  

Is there such a method or technique to cause validation to run on-demand, including updating the page to show the validation error and letting my JS know that the validation failed?

Thanks,

- Chris