Develop Reference

Can we detect whether a link was clicked within a DIV that has a jQuery.click()?

I'm wondering whether there is an easy way to detect a click on a link that appears within a div on which I want to handle clicks...
So, there is an simple example of HTML code:
<div class="checkmark">
<div class="box"> </div>
<div class="label">Checkbox label possibly with an anchor.</div>
</div>
So in this example, I use a set of <div> tags to create a checkmark. The "box" is where I show a little square and when checked, also show the checkmark (a red cross, for example.)
To make the checkmark work as expected, I use jQuery and capture mouse clicks on the main <div> tag:
jQuery("checkmark").click(function(e){
e.stopPropagation();
e.preventDefault();
jQuery("box", this).toggle("checked");
});
Pretty easy, that works great (the "checked" class is enough to show a checkmark since that can be defined using CSS.)
However, as we can see in the example, the "label" includes an anchor. If I click the anchor, the jQuery I just presented runs, but the anchor does nothing. If I remove the stopPropagation() and preventDefault() the anchor gets clicked, but the checkmark is toggled too.
What I'm wondering is: is there an easy way to check whether the propagation would trigger the anchor and in that case just ignore the click in the "checkmark" code?
Something like that:
jQuery("checkmark").click(function(e){
if(!(anchor.clicked())) // how do we do this?
{
e.stopPropagation();
e.preventDefault();
jQuery("box", this).toggle("checked");
}
});
P.S. I do not know whether there are anchors in the label. So the discovery has to happen in the click() function (unless there is a better setup and that "if" could happen differently).
Note: here I show a target="blank" parameter. In the real deal I will actually open a popup, but that doesn't really make a difference here.

This is what event.target is for.
For example, in this case:
if($(e.target).is("a")) {
// It was the anchor element that was clicked
}
jsFiddle here

You can just add this handler:
jQuery("checkmark a").click(function(e){
e.stopPropagation();
}
It will stop the click event from bubbling from the link to the div, so the link will be activated, and the event never reaches the div where it would be stopped.

You could use the event delegateTarget property to see which DOM element triggered the event.
if($(e.delegateTarget).is("a"))
// execute code

JavaScript Click event fires via the Enter Key but not via the Mouse

Some code that looks like the following is firing the click event via the Enter key, but is not responding to the mouse click.
//a is an anchor element
a.addEventListener('click', function (e)
{
//Do Stuff...
});
This page demonstrates the problem. The relevant bit of code is at line 176. This is in the middle of development and currently only (sort of) works in Chrome.
Also, I just verified that it works if I use mousedown, so it's not just the case of an invisible element sitting in front of the anchor.
Any ideas?

Edit: Now that you've shown us the actual code you're using, the problem is related to the fact that the autoSuggest() function has it's own click handler and in that click handler, it is clearing the container which removes all <a> elements in the container so your link object gets destroyed (probably before your click event gets to process). So, you can get events that happen before the click (like mousedown), but after a click, the element is removed from the DOM.
If you tell us what you're trying to actually do when an auto-suggest item is clicked that is different than the default behavior of the autoSuggest() function and you point to any documentation for that function, then perhaps we could offer a better way to solve your issue.
The link may be firing and taking you off to a new page (or reloading the current page), thus preventing you from seeing the click code run. Usually when you process a click event on a link element, you need to prevent the default behavior:
//a is an anchor element
a.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
//Do Stuff...
});
Another possibility is that you are trying to install the event handler too soon either before the DOM has been loaded or before this particular link has been created and thus no actual click event handler is attached to the DOM object. You can verify whether the event handler is even getting called by temporarily putting an alert("Click handler called"); in the event handler and see if that pops up or not.

Keydown event not removed from document and not registering on div element

NOTICE: The cause of the problem has been found, read the comments to the first answer.
I have a dropdown list of things, that is hidden until the user invokes it.
It's something like this:
<div>
<button></button>
<ul>
<li></li>
....
<li></li>
</ul>
</div>
The basic idea:
The list becomes visible when the user presses the button shown in the code above.
I need to make the list able to be navigated by keyboard,
i.e. if the user presses up or down while the list is open, the appropriate li will be selected (as if the mouse was hovering over it instead)
The event listener responsible for giving this functionality to the list should be attached when the list becomes visible and be removed when the list becomes hidden again.
Something like what Bitbucket does for the dropdown lists, but even simpler.
The issue:
I tried to attach an event listener to the ul and then on the div element, when the former had no effect, to no avail.
The code is this
ON SHOW
this.<ul or div element here>.addEventListener('keydown', this.keyboardNavigation.bind(this));
ON HIDE
this.<ul or div element here>.removeEventListener('keydown', this.keyboardNavigation.bind(this));
and the callback is like so
function keyboardNavigation(e) {
console.log('foo');
}
NOTE: "this" is an object to which the div and the ul are both properties of, and the callback function is actually a method of that object.
QUESTION 1:
Why is the keydown event not working when I attach it to either the ul itself or the parent div?
Anyway, since these did not work, I decided to attach the listener to the document.
ON SHOW
document.addEventListener('keydown', this.keyboardNavigation.bind(this));
ON HIDE
document.removeEventListener('keydown', this.keyboardNavigation.bind(this));
Same callback.
Now, while this works, I noticed that the event listener is not removed from the document.
I later noticed that another keydown event listener I had attached to the document for another task, is also not removed when that task is done, while it should.
QUESTION 2:
Why are the event listeners not removed? I cannot understand what I am doing wrong, I am removing the exact same callback on the exact same event as were those that were added.
Any help will be much appreciated.
NOTE:
I have tried doing it with jQuery's .on() and .off() instead, as suggested here, although I do not want to use jQuery, yet same thing is happening.

My thoughts:
1 Is it because the DIV or UL isn't getting the keyboard events because the don't have focus? Whereas the document is always getting the bubbled events?
To test this, click in the DIV/UL and type and see if the keyboard events get triggered then.
I think binding to the document - if you want the user to be able to just start typing after clicking - is the right thing to do here.
2 Is this because you are not removing the same handler you created? You should retain a reference to the handler you create with the first bind call and pass this reference in to the remove call - otherwise you're creating another (different) handler and asking to remove that.
E.g.:
var f = this.keyboardNavigation.bind(this);
document.addEventListener('keydown', f);
document.removeEventListener('keydown', f);

Disable mouse events on overlapping divs without pointer-events

I have a div with a onClick event, but it's not detecting the mouse because of an overlapping div. I can't put it below the 1st one, so changing the z-index isn't an option.
Is there any way to disable the mouse events on the 2nd div without the pointer-events? I need this to be cross-browser.
Requested sample. Right now all the event does is fire an alert:
<div class="buttonDiv" onClick="buttonAction()"></div>
<div class="filterDiv"></div>

You can try this:
HTML
<div class="buttonDiv" onClick="buttonAction(event)">
OUTER
<div class="filterDiv">INNER</div>
</div>
Javascript
var buttonAction = function(e) {
if(e.target.className == "buttonDiv") {
//code here
alert('got here');
}
}
Example: http://jsfiddle.net/aFRcd/1/
Basically on the click, you send along the click event and then you can see which div was actually clicked using event.target
You'll notice in the example that clicking on OUTER fires the alert whereas INNER does not.

The only solution I could find was having a Mouse Move event attached to the canvas and compare the coordinates of the button to the position and dimensions of the buttons. It's a pain, but at least it does the job

How can I bind a JQuery event to make it only fire once?

I have a help popup that I want to close when somewhere else is clicked. Here's what I have:
$('.help[data-info]').click(function(){
$('.info[a complicated selector]').toggle(400);
$('*:not(.info[the complicated selector]).one('click','',function(){
.info[the complicated selector].hide(400);
});
})
But one() isn't what I want before it fires for each element on the page. I only want it to fire once.

It looks like you are attaching event handlers to every element in your dom except the help popup? Hmm...
How about this:
Create a single "mask" div that overlays the entire screen, but is transparent (opacity: 0.0). Attach the click event handler only to that mask div. Then open up the info div on top of the overlay div. Clicking anywhere on the page, other than the info div, the event will be captured by the mask div before it gets to anything under it. In your event handler, hide() the info div, and remove the mask div altogether. While testing/experimenting with this, start with a partially opaque mask, not fully transparent).

Make use of a boolean variable and set it to true after first click, so it doesn't trigger the action again:
$('.help[data-info]').click(function() {
var clicked = false;
$('.info[a complicated selector]').toggle(400);
$('*:not(.info[the complicated selector]').one('click','',function() {
if (!clicked) {
.info[the complicated selector].hide(400);
clicked = true;
}
});
})

A couple of options:
You can use the blur event instead of binding a click event to everything but your popup.
Add a transparent, full-page div between the popup and the rest of the page. A click event on the transparent div could handle the hiding.

If you only want to fire once across all your elements, then you may have to manually unbind all the event handlers when any one is clicked or use a flag:
$('.help[data-info]').click(function(){
$('.info[a complicated selector]').toggle(400);
var sel = $('*:not(.info[the complicated selector]);
function hideInfo() {
.info[the complicated selector].hide(400);
sel.unbind('click', hideInfo);
}
sel.bind('click', hideInfo);
})