We Keep Coding

JavaScript onMouseDown and onClick events versus event queue

I have following simple JS code (https://stackblitz.com/edit/web-platform-ueq5aq?file=script.js):
const baton = document.querySelector('button');
baton.addEventListener('mousedown', (e) => {
console.log('baton');
baton.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
console.log('baton click');
});
});
When I click a button, I get 'baton' and 'baton click' logged to console. Now my question is what exactly happens here? As I understand it, the moment script is executed, handler mousedown is added to even queue. When I actually click button, this handler is run, so it's taken from event queue, added to call stack and it is executed. When it is executed, handler "click" is added to event queue.
How actually event onClick is triggered after onMouseDown? How is that related to event queue? Why onMouseDown handler is run before click event happens? I'm asking because I have a lot more complex code where result is different in different scenarios.
When user navigates to page in SPA which contains similiar script, and then clicks button 'baton' order is:
mousedown event -> handler mousedown -> handler click -> click event
And when user reloads page, so SPA is loaded right on that page, and clicks button 'baton' order is:
mousedown event -> click event -> handler mousedown
I am seeking answer and truth. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Ps. Unfortunately I'm not able to reproduce this error in example repository - it happens in quite complex web app which production code I can't share here for obvious reasons.
Ps2. Just to clarify, because probably it isn't stated clearly enough: I'm not asking "why mousedown event is triggered before click event", but "why mousedown HANDLER is run before click event". This is NOT obvious, because handlers are not run immediately. In order of handler to be run, it first have to wait to call stack to be empty, so event queue can be processed by JS engine.

The browser tracks the element you clicked the moused down on. Then it tracks the element you lifted the mouse button on. If the element you lifted the mouse button on is the same element or a child element of the target element. Then a click event is dispatched to the last element you lifted the mouse on. The event then propagates up the element chain to every parent element unless the event is told to stop propagating.
If you click down on element A and mouse up on element B. Then A gets mouse down event, and B gets mouse up event, but neither get a click event. Same thing if you navigate the browser to another page in between the mouse down and mouse up.

From MDN Web Docs
An element receives a click event when a pointing device button (such as a mouse's primary mouse button) is both pressed and released while the pointer is located inside the element.
So there is a mouseup event and then the click event.
EDIT after question edit:
"why mousedown HANDLER is run before click event?"
Your already executing mousedown handler registers the click handler so how should the click handler run before it?
All click handlers registered in all previous mousedown handlers will run after the mousedown and mouseup events too.

Perhaps we should start by clarifying a few things.
Events in the browser, are modeled more like a "nesting hierarchy", then a queue -- How it works is referred to as Event Bubbling -- [Wikipedia][1]
But, essentially what you are doing, when adding an EventListener, is hooking into one or more points of the DOM, and saying hey, when X Event passes through here, use function Y to handle it, before passing it along up the stack.
Once an EventListener has been "added" it remains active waiting to be given an event. What exactly it does is defined in its handler function.
let myYFunction = function( e ) { ... }
let myXListener = baton.addEventListern('X event', myYFunction );
// at this point, anytime 'X event' happens to baton, myYFunction will
// be called to handle it...
Now let's take a look at your examples, lets break things down a little,
const baton = document.querySelector('button');
This first line, is simply querying the DOM, to find the first element of type 'button' in the page. Right... This is "where" we want to insert our event handler. We could add them to any element, anywhere in the DOM, we could even hook into the 'body' element if we wanted to.
Ok, then you have this bit,
baton.addEventListener('mousedown', (e) => {
console.log('baton');
baton.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
console.log('baton click');
});
});
Which is "nesting" the creation of the 'click' Event Listener, but only after a 'mousedown' event has been "handled". There is no real reason the 'click' event had to be registered within the function body of the mousedown handler.
If we re-write it a bit, it may be clearer what is actually going on.
baton.addEventListener('mousedown', (e) => {
console.log('baton mousedown');
}
baton.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
console.log('baton click');
});
Additionally I would also point out, that how it is being done currently "works" -- but it is actually hiding a tiny bit of sloppy coding... you see every time the 'mousedown' event is triggered a new 'click' eventListener is being registered... so eventually you may end up with many, many, many click handlers responding to a single 'click' event... Check out MDN to learn more about [this][2]
I hope this answers your initial questions as to what is going on.
To your question "When I click a button, I get 'baton' and 'baton click' logged to console. Now my question is what exactly happens here?" -- To me, it would look something like this:
a 'mousedown' eventListener is added, however nothing "executes"
a 'mousedown' event takes place, now your 'mousedown' listener executes its function, which in turn logs out to the console, and registers a new 'click' handler -- but again, does not execute.
Moving forward, steps 1 and 2 are repeated for every 'mousedown' seen by baton. Additionally, for any 'click' event passed through baton --- which happens after every 'mousedown' on baton:
A 'click' event occurs, your 'click' handler is then executed and logs out to the console.
SPA event handling strategies
When working with SPAs, where multiple "pages" are displayed, in the same page load... it can get messy, all these event listeners hanging around piling up on one another. If you are going to employ eventListeners between "Pages" of your SPA, you might want to look into how to "remove" them too. - [MDN][3]
That way, you only have eventListeners active for the current "Page" of your SPA.
Also, consider "generalizing" your handlers, and attaching them higher up in the DOM... This would allow you to have only a few event listeners which "route" events to their "logical" handlers.
Random/Different Behaviors
With the steps outlines above, 1, 2 and 3 and how they don't all happen at the same time. You will see what appears to be random output to the console... try and run something like this, to get a proper sense of things:
let cCount = 0;
let mCount = 0;
let tCount = 0;
const baton = document.querySelector('button');
baton.addEventListener('mousedown', (e) => {
console.log('mousedown # ' + (mCount++) + ' order:' + tCount++);
baton.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
console.log('click # ' + (cCount++) + ' order:' + tCount++);
});
});
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_bubbling#:~:text=Event%20bubbling%20is%20a%20type,Provided%20the%20handler%20is%20initialized).
[2]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/EventTarget/addEventListener
[3]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/EventTarget/removeEventListener

Treat short swipe as click

I have a mobile web app, which uses a lot of click event handlers on buttons, etc. All of this works fine if the user really "clicks" (i.e. "touchdown-touchup") the button. However if the user does a short swipe, then the click event does not fire. This causes a lot of complaints from my users that the app doesn't register clicks/taps and that other apps work correctly.
Of course, I can get coordinates of the touch in ontouchstart and ontouchend and compute the distance - but I need to also know whether that distance is under the maximum that the browser would treat as 'click'. I do not want to switch to using touchstart/touchend events instead of click.
I used to use fastclick.js library for handling clicks/taps in the past, but now use native 'click' events with touch-action: manipulation. Is there any way of specify/controlling the maximum movement of the finger on the button that still registers as a 'click'?
Update based on comments. The application is very large and there are hundreds if not thousands of event handler assignments throughout it (the app has been developed over the last 8 years). Changing all of these is not practical, therefore I'm looking for a solution that would allow me to either set the threshold once globally or solve the problem with a global-like touchstart/touchend handlers.

I thought this was an interesting problem so I took a shot at solving it for you. In a way it's somewhat similar to the problem of preventing a click event when a dblclick happens.
Using a distance threshold for a "short swipe" seems, to me at least, problematic in that the threshold distance might be system dependent. Instead of that I decided to trigger on if the "click" event actually happens. I used mousedown as a simulated touchstart and mouseup as a simulated touchend. mouseup always happens before click so it is similar to touchend in that respect.
Normally if you "click" (mousedown) on an element and then move your mouse pointer off the element, the click event does not happen. This is much like the situation you describe as being a "short swipe". After a certain distance the click event just doesn't happen. The code below will send a click event for the button even if you mousedown on it, move the pointer off it and then mouseup. I believe that this would solve the problem if you used it for touchstart and touchend instead
// The pre-exisiting click handler
function handleClick(ev) {
console.log('button clicked. do work.');
}
document.getElementById('theButton').addEventListener('click', handleClick);
// our global "touch" handlers
var touchHandler = {
curPending: null,
curElem: null,
handleTouch: function handleTouch(ev) {
switch (ev.type) {
case 'mousedown':
// capture the target that the click is being initiated on
touchHandler.curElem = ev.target;
// add an extra click handler so we know if the click event happens
ev.target.addEventListener('click', touchHandler.specialClick);
break;
case 'mouseup':
// start a pending click timer in case the click event doesn't happen
touchHandler.curPending = setTimeout(touchHandler.pendingClick, 1);
break;
}
},
specialClick: function(ev) {
// the click event happened
// clear our extra handler
touchHandler.curElem.removeEventListener('click', touchHandler.specialClick);
// make sure we don't send an extra click event
clearTimeout(touchHandler.curPending);
},
pendingClick: function() {
// we never heard the click event
// clear our extra handler
touchHandler.curElem.removeEventListener('click', touchHandler.specialClick);
// trigger a click event on the element that started it all
touchHandler.curElem.click();
}
};
// using "mousedown" as "touchstart" and "mouseup" as "touchend"
document.addEventListener('mouseup', touchHandler.handleTouch);
document.addEventListener('mousedown', touchHandler.handleTouch);
<p>I work when clicked normally but I also work when
mousedown, drag pointer off me, mouseup</p>
<button id="theButton">Click Me</button>

jQuery - Event delegation is occuring multiple times

I'm using event delegation in the pagination for my website. When you click the < or > buttons it moves the page up or down. The problem is that if you don't release the mouse button, in a split-second it will keep repeating the click handler.
How can I make it so that this event only occurs once per-click? Here's my code:
$(document).on('mousedown', '#prev', function(event) {
// Page is the value of the URL parameter 'page'
if (page != 1) {
page--;
var state = {
"thisIsOnPopState": true
};
history.replaceState(state, "a", "?page=" + page + "");
}
// Refresh is a custom function that loads new items on the page
refresh();
});

You should use "click" event instead of "mousedown" unless you have a unavoidable reason.
But "mousedown" or "touchstart" event occurs when a user start pressing the mouse button or screen and it will not be fired until you release the button and press it again.
So I assume you are using a chattering mouse or mouses which has macro software.
change event into "click" and see if it works and in the case "click" event is not gonna solve the issue,try using another mouse.
FYI,underscore methods _.throttle or _.debounce might help to support chattering mouses.
throttle_.throttle(function, wait, [options])
Creates and returns a new, throttled version of the passed function, that, when invoked repeatedly, will only actually call the original function at most once per every wait milliseconds. Useful for rate-limiting events that occur faster than you can keep up with.
debounce_.debounce(function, wait, [immediate])
Creates and returns a new debounced version of the passed function which will postpone its execution until after wait milliseconds have elapsed since the last time it was invoked. Useful for implementing behavior that should only happen after the input has stopped arriving. For example: rendering a preview of a Markdown comment, recalculating a layout after the window has stopped being resized, and so on.
http://underscorejs.org/

If you want to use a "delegated" event handler rather than a "direct" event handler to bubble up the event, try to use a more specific target selector than $(document) like $('.some-class') where some-class is the class name directly above the #prev element.
I would also use either the mouseup or click events instead to avoid the mousedown event firing while the mouse click is held down.
According to the API:
The majority of browser events bubble, or propagate, from the deepest,
innermost element (the event target) in the document where they occur
all the way up to the body and the document element.
Try this:
// delegated "click" listener using a more specific target selector
$('.some-class').on('click', '#prev', function(event) {})
You may want to check your HTML to see if you are using #prev multiple times. Usually, just creating the listener on the target ID element should work fine.
// direct "click" listener on an ID element
$('#prev').on('click', function(event) {})

I haven't found the answer to this question, but I have found a solution that fixes the problem. What I have done is added a conditional that only allows the click event to occur once-per-click:
var i = 0;
$(document).on('click', '#prev', function(event) {
if (page != 1 && i === 0) {
page--;
var state = {
"thisIsOnPopState": true
};
history.replaceState(state, "a", "?page=" + page + "");
i = 1;
refresh();
}
});
// Resets 'i' for the next click
$(document).on('mouseup', function() {
i = 0;
});

Click event firing so many times on touchend on iOS

I created this fiddle and when I run it on iOS (I tested on iOS7), click event is fired a lot of times (around 15 - 20 times) on a single tap. But if I hold my finger for a brief moment before releasing it, click event does not fire at all. Why does it fire lots of click events in the first case, and why not at all in the second case?
parent.addEventListener("touchend", function () {
console.log("parent is touched");
parent.addEventListener("click", function () {
console.log("parent is clicked");
});
});
http://jsfiddle.net/5hsnx/
I know this is not really a useful piece of code in real life, but I was trying to figure out why this happens.

It looks like you're adding a new click event listener each time touchend fires, so over time, you'll see more and more events fired in the log.

How to tell if a mouseup is going to be followed by a click event?

Is there any way to know, in a jQuery onmouseup handler, if the event is going to be followed by a click event for the same element?
I have an event handler for a menu hyperlink which unbinds itself when the user either clicks on an element or "drops" (as in drag-n-drop) on an element. I want to avoid prematurely unbinding the handler on mouseup if a click is coming next.
I realize I can track mousedown and mouseup events myself or otherwise hack up a solution (e.g. wait 50 msecs to see if a click comes soon), but I was hoping to avoid rolling my own implementation if there's something built-in for this purpose.

There is nothing built-in because it's really specific to your needs. Thus, there would kilometers of code and documentation to maintain if jQuery would handle any combination of clicks, long clicks, moves, etc.
It's also hard to give you a snippet that satisfies your needs, but a setTimeout is usually the first step to take, with something like that :
obj.mouseup = function (){
obj.click = action; // do action
setTimeout ( function() {
obj.click = functionOrigin // after 500 ms, disable the click interception
}, 500);
};

you can use $(selector).data('events') for that
$('div').mouseup(function(){
if($(this).data('events').click){
console.log('Has a click event handler')
}
});