How do I handle a click anywhere in the page even when a certain element stops the propagation

Question

We are working on a JavaScript tool that has older code in it  so we cannot re-write the whole tool   Now  a menu was added position fixed to the bottom and the client would very much like it to have a toggle button to open and close the menu  except closing needs to happen automatically when a user starts doing things out side of the menu  for example  when a user goes back into the page  and selects something or clicks on a form field   This could technically work with a click event on the body  triggering on any click   however there are numerous items in the older code  where a click event was handled on an internal link  and return false was added to the click function  in order for the site not to continue to the link s href tag   So clearly  a general function like this does work  but not when clicked on an internal link where the return false stops the propagation      body   click function      console log  clicked          Is there a way I can force the body click event anyway  or is there another way I can let the menu dissappear  using some global click event or anything similar   Without having to rewrite all other clicks in the application that were created years ago  That would be a monster task  especially since I have no clue how I would rewrite them  without the return false  but still don t let them go to their href

User · Accepted Answer

Events in modern DOM implementations have two phases, capturing and bubbling. The capturing phase is the first phase, flowing from the defaultView of the document to the event target, followed by the bubbling phase, flowing from the event target back to the defaultView. For more information, see http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Events/#event-flow.

To handle the capturing phase of an event, you need to set the third argument for addEventListener to true:

document.body.addEventListener('click', fn, true);

Sadly, as Wesley mentioned, the capturing phase of an event cannot be handled reliably, or at all, in older browsers.

One possible solution is to handle the mouseup event instead, since event order for clicks is:

mousedown
mouseup
click

If you can be sure you have no handlers cancelling the mouseup event, then this is one way (and, arguably, a better way) to go. Another thing to note is that many, if not most (if not all), UI menus disappear on mouse down.

User · Answer

I think this is what you need      body   trigger  click      This will allow you to trigger the body click event from anywhere

User · Answer

this is the key  vs evt target   See example    x000D   x000D  document body addEventListener  click   function  evt    x000D      console dir this   x000D        note evt target can be a nested element  not the body element  resulting in misfires x000D      console log evt target   x000D      alert  body clicked    x000D      x000D   lt h4 gt This is a heading  lt  h4 gt  x000D   lt p gt this is a paragraph  lt  p gt  x000D   x000D   x000D

User · Answer

If you make sure that this is the first event handler work  something like this might do the trick          click function event        if  this     event target       only fire this handler on the original element         alert  clicked                Note that  if you have lots of elements in your page  this will be Really Very Slow  and it won t work for anything added dynamically

User · Answer

What you really want to do is bind the event handler for the capture phase of the event   However  that isn t supported in IE as far as I know  so that might not be all that useful   http   www quirksmode org js events order html  Related questions    jQuery equivalent of JavaScript  39 s addEventListener method Emulate W3C event capturing model in IE

User · Answer

In cooperation with Andy E  this is the dark side of the force   var  old   jQuery Event prototype stopPropagation   jQuery Event prototype stopPropagation   function         this target nodeName      SPAN   amp  amp   old apply  this  arguments              Example  http   jsfiddle net M4teA 2   Remember  if all the events were bound via jQuery  you can handle those cases just here  In this example  we just call the original  stopPropagation   if we are not dealing with a  lt span gt      You cannot prevent the prevent  no   What you could do is  to rewrite those event handlers manually in-code  This is tricky business  but if you know how to access the stored handler methods  you could work around it  I played around with it a little  and this is my result      document body   click function         alert  Hi I am bound to the body               bar    click function e        alert  I am the span and I do prevent propagation        e stopPropagation              yay    click function            span   each function i  elem            var events          jQuery  data elem  events              oldHandler                        elem              elem             if   click  in events                                            forEach call  events click  function  click                     oldHandler push  click handler                                  elem off   click                        if  oldHandler length                 oldHandler forEach function  handler                      elem bind   click    function  h                         return function                             h apply  this    stopPropagation    noop                                                handler                                             this disabled   1      return false        Example  http   jsfiddle net M4teA   Notice  the above code will only work with jQuery 1 7  If those click events were bound with an earlier jQuery version or  inline   you still can use the code but you would need to access the  old handler  differently   I know I m assuming a lot of  perfect world  scenario things here  for instance  that those handles explicitly call  stopPropagation   instead of returning false  So it still might be a useless academic example  but I felt to come out with it  -   edit  hey  return false  will work just fine  the event objects is accessed in the same way

User · Answer

document body addEventListener  quot keyup quot   function event      if  event keyCode     13      event preventDefault      console log  clicked              DEMO https   jsfiddle net muratkezli 51rnc9ug 6

User · Answer

You could use jQuery to add an event listener on the document DOM    x000D   x000D        document  on  click   function      x000D          console log  clicked    x000D          x000D   lt script src  https   ajax googleapis com ajax libs jquery 2 1 1 jquery min js  gt  lt  script gt  x000D   x000D   x000D

[javascript] How do I handle a click anywhere in the page, even when a certain element stops the propagation?

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