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Redirect an event to an inner element

I have a special scenario where I need to capture key events on a higher level, and redirect them to a lower level. I'm trying to write code like this, but actually it seems like jQuery is dumbly using the exact same event object, so target is not changed, so Maximum callstack size exceeded...
$("#outer").on("keydown", function(evt) {
if (evt.target !== $("#inner")[0] && !$.contains($("#inner")[0], evt.target)) {
$("#inner").trigger(evt);
}
});
With a sample markup
<div id="#outer">
<div id="#inner">
</div>
</div>
What is the proper way to redirect an event to another element? I could of course manually "hack" the target, but is it safe?
I'm working on a plugin which dynamically shows a menu as a popup or as a modal based on screen size. If I have a modal, I need this key redirection. The consumer should not know about wether it's a popup or a modal. I'm using bootstrap's modal plugin, which captures key events because of a "focus-lock thing", so the only way I can make it transparent is that I redirect these events to my real menu.

You could attach the event handler onto the outer and specify a selector to use to match the event:
$('#outer').on('keydown', '#inner', event => {
/* this is executed when #inner is clicked */
});
If you really want to use trigger, you could put it in a setTimeout:
$('#outer').on('keydown', event => {
if (yourCondition) {
setTimeout(() => $('#inner').trigger(event), 0);
}
});

The event will bubble up and you're right, it's the same event. This isn't a jQuery thing but actually just how javascript works. You may want to set a listener on the child element, and use preventDefault();
$("#outer").on("keydown", doSomeThing);
$("#inner").on("keydown", doSomeThingElse);
function doSomeThing(e) {
}
function doSomeThingElse(e) {
e.preventDefault();
}
this will allow you to separate your listeners into distinct functions.

Thank you all for the answers and comments. A few of you suggested preventing propagation of the event at the #inner div. I need to avoid this, I need a way where any external consumer will see this event just as it was triggered by the #inner element for real.
In the meantime I digged into jQuery source and found this line in trigger.
if ( !event.target ) {
event.target = elem;
}
So when jQuery initializes the event to trigger, it only assignes the element to the target if the target is not yet specified. sure they have some good reasons for this behavior, which I cannot see at this moment.
So the best thing I could come up with is a function like this.
function redirectEvent(currentTarget, evt, newTarget) {
if (currentTarget !== newTarget && !$.contains(currentTarget, newTarget)) {
evt = $.Event(evt.type, evt);
delete evt.target;
$(newTarget).trigger(evt);
}
}
As far as first tests go, I can't see any side-effect or drawback.

How to stop event propagation from within an anchor's href attribute without using onclick or onmousedown

Due to restrictions, even though it is something i avoid altogether, in a certain situation i have to use the javascript: syntax in a href attribute of an achor tag.
(EXPLANATION: In my CMS i use a rich text editor to allow the user to make changes to text elements, including links. In some cases specific javascript: calls are required and i banned onclick completely from the link editing features (to simplify the process for the user). However, as one of the links appears within a block that reacts to an onclick event, the thing double-fires)
Like this:
My problem is that this link is inside a container that already reacts to an onclick event. Therefore i wanted to pass the event object along to the doSomething() method, so that i could then use jQuery's
event.stopPropagation()
method.
Unfortunately however, it seems that passing the event object along
does not seem to work at all. Safari won't say anything while Firefox will report ReferenceError: event is not defined
I assume that this is the case because href="" is not a script-initiating attribute (such as onclick). The problem is that in this situation i won't be able to access the tag beyond what i already do.
Therefore i either need
1.) A way to pass the event object to the doSomething() function from within the href attribute
or
2.) A way to stop the event propagation right in that anchor (after its clicked) by other means.
Thank You for any constructive input!

You cannot stop event propagation from the href attribute because:
When the href code executes, it is not an event. It just executes that code, similar to the "location hack". Like entering javascript:doSomething() in the browser's address bar.
The href code executes after the events fire on the link -- including bubbling.
You can see that behavior in this jsFiddle. Note that mouseup, mousedown, and click all fire both for the link, and on the container when the link is clicked, before the href code executes.
If there are event listeners that you want to block, you'll have to find another way.
But, if you can append javascript to the document you can block the href using preventDefault().
For example:
jQuery, before version 1.7:
$("#container a").bind ("mousedown mouseup click", function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
} );
jQuery 1.7 and later:
$("#container a").on ("mousedown mouseup click", function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
} );
or (better):
$("#container").on ("mousedown mouseup click", "a", function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
} );
You can see this last version live at jsFiddle.

If you cannot alter the link itself (to use onclick) then your only option is to alter the onclick handler of the container.
Can you do something like
function containerClickHandler(e) {
e = e || event;
var el = e.target || e.srcElement;
if (el.nodeName === 'A' && someOtherMatchChecks) {
// eat event
}
else {
// process event
}
}

Well, this is an old question, but in my particular case I did find a hack around it, but it might only apply to a subset of situations. I have a div that has an onclick. But if an inside that div is clicked, I don't want that div's onclick to fire. Here is what I do:
function myOnClick () {
// loop over all <a>'s, and test if they are hovered over right now.
var allLinks = document.links;
var dont = 0;
for (var i = 0, n = allLinks.length; i < n; i++) {
// pure javascript test to see if element is hovered.
if(allLinks[i].parentElement.querySelector(":hover") === allLinks[i]) {dont = 1; }
};
if(dont)return;
// your stuff here, only fires when dont is false.
}
I learned about the queryselector trick here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/14800287/2295722

I don't know if there is a way to get the arguments if you write your javascript in href attribute. But you can get it as following in onclick, but as you say this isn't the best practice:
<a onclick="console.log(arguments)">your link</a>
in arguments array you'll get your event object.
here is a demo for you:
http://jsfiddle.net/tEw5J/1/

Jquery remove and add back click event

Is it possible to remove than add back click event to specific element? i.e
I have a $("#elem").click(function{//some behaviour});, $(".elem").click(function{//some behaviour});(there are more than 1 element) while my other function getJson is executing I'd like to remove the click event from the #elem, and add it again onsuccess from getJson function, but preserve both mouseenter and mouseleave events the whole time?
Or maybe create overlay to prevent clicking like in modal windows? is that better idea?
edit :
I've seen some really good answers, but there is one detail that I omitted not on purpose. There are more than one element, and I call the click function on the className not on elementId as I stated in the original question

Rather than using unbind(), which means you'll have to rebind the same event handler later, you can use jQuery's data() facility with the ajaxStart and ajaxStop events to have your elements ignore click events during all AJAX requests:
$(".elem").click(function() {
if (!$(this).data("ajaxRequestPending")) {
// some behaviour
}
}).ajaxStart(function() {
$(this).data("ajaxRequestPending", true);
}).ajaxStop(function() {
$(this).removeData("ajaxRequestPending");
});
EDIT: This answer is also id-to-class-proof (see questioner's edit), since everything matching the selector will handle the AJAX events the right way. That's the main selling point of jQuery, and it shows.

You are looking for .unbind(). Pass it 'click' and it will destroy the click event.
I would put it just before your getJSON and re-bind the click event inside the success handler of your ajax call.

You have to do some additional scripting. There is no callback for that. Take a look over here: jQuery - How can I temporarily disable the onclick event listener after the event has been fired?

Rather than unbinding/binding the click event, you could check the state of another variable to see if it should do the action.
var MyObject = {
requestActive = false;
};
function MyJsonFunction() {
// when requesting
MyObject.requestActive = true;
//...
// when request over
MyObject.requestActive = false;
}
$("#elem").click(function{
if (MyObject.requestActive == true) {
//do something
}
});

Simulating a click in jQuery/JavaScript on a link

I want to simulate a click on any link on a page using JavaScript. If that link has some function binded to its 'onclick' event (by any other JS I don't have any control over), then that function must be called otherwise the link should behave in the normal manner and open a new page.
I am not sure that just checking the value of the 'onclick' handler would suffice. I want to build this so that it works on any link element.
I have no control over what function maybe binded to the onclick event of the link using whichever JS library (not necessarily jQuery) or by simply using JavaScript.
EDIT: With the help of the answers below, it looks like it is possible to check for event handlers attached using jQuery or using the onclick attribute. How do I check for event handlers attached using addEventListener / any other JS library so that it is foolproof?

You can use the the click function to trigger the click event on the selected element.
Example:
$( 'selector for your link' ).click ();
You can learn about various selectors in jQuery's documentation.
EDIT: like the commenters below have said; this only works on events attached with jQuery, inline or in the style of "element.onclick". It does not work with addEventListener, and it will not follow the link if no event handlers are defined.
You could solve this with something like this:
var linkEl = $( 'link selector' );
if ( linkEl.attr ( 'onclick' ) === undefined ) {
document.location = linkEl.attr ( 'href' );
} else {
linkEl.click ();
}
Don't know about addEventListener though.

Why not just the good ol' javascript?
$('#element')[0].click()

Just
$("#your_item").trigger("click");
using .trigger() you can simulate many type of events, just passing it as the parameter.

Easy! Just use jQuery's click function:
$("#theElement").click();

Try this
function submitRequest(buttonId) {
if (document.getElementById(buttonId) == null
|| document.getElementById(buttonId) == undefined) {
return;
}
if (document.getElementById(buttonId).dispatchEvent) {
var e = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
e.initEvent("click", true, true);
document.getElementById(buttonId).dispatchEvent(e);
} else {
document.getElementById(buttonId).click();
}
}
and you can use it like
submitRequest("target-element-id");

At first see this question to see how you can find if a link has a jQuery handler assigned to it.
Next use:
$("a").attr("onclick")
to see if there is a javascript event assigned to it.
If any of the above is true, then call the click method. If not, get the link:
$("a").attr("href")
and follow it.
I am afraid I don't know what to do if addEventListener is used to add an event handler. If you are in charge of the full page source, use only jQuery event handlers.

All this might not help say when you use rails remote form button to simulate click to. I tried to port nice event simulation from prototype here: my snippets. Just did it and it works for me.

Can I call jQuery's click() to follow an <a> link if I haven't bound an event handler to it with bind or click already?

I have a timer in my JavaScript which needs to emulate clicking a link to go to another page once the time elapses. To do this I'm using jQuery's click() function. I have used $().trigger() and window.location also, and I can make it work as intended with all three.
I've observed some weird behavior with click() and I'm trying to understand what happens and why.
I'm using Firefox for everything I describe in this question, but I am also interested in what other browsers will do with this.
If I have not used $('a').bind('click',fn) or $('a').click(fn) to set an event handler, then calling $('a').click() seems to do nothing at all. It does not call the browser's default handler for this event, as the browser does not load the new page.
However, if I set an event handler first, then it works as expected, even if the event handler does nothing.
$('a').click(function(){return true;}).click();
This loads the new page as if I had clicked the a myself.
So my question is twofold: Is this weird behavior because I'm doing something wrong somewhere? and why does calling click() do nothing with the default behavior if I haven't created a handler of my own?
As Hoffman determined when he tried to duplicate my results, the outcome I described above doesn't actually happen. I'm not sure what caused the events I observed yesterday, but I'm certain today that it was not what I described in the question.
So the answer is that you can't "fake" clicks in the browser and that all jQuery does is call your event handler. You can still use window.location to change page, and that works fine for me.

Another option is of course to just use vanilla JavaScript:
document.getElementById("a_link").click()

Interesting, this is probably a "feature request" (ie bug) for jQuery. The jQuery click event only triggers the click action (called onClick event on the DOM) on the element if you bind a jQuery event to the element. You should go to jQuery mailing lists ( http://forum.jquery.com/ ) and report this. This might be the wanted behavior, but I don't think so.
EDIT:
I did some testing and what you said is wrong, even if you bind a function to an 'a' tag it still doesn't take you to the website specified by the href attribute. Try the following code:
<html>
<head>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
/* Try to dis-comment this:
$('#a').click(function () {
alert('jQuery.click()');
return true;
});
*/
});
function button_onClick() {
$('#a').click();
}
function a_onClick() {
alert('a_onClick');
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="button" onclick="button_onClick()">
<br>
<a id='a' href='http://www.google.com' onClick="a_onClick()"> aaa </a>
</body>
</html>
It never goes to google.com unless you directly click on the link (with or without the commented code). Also notice that even if you bind the click event to the link it still doesn't go purple once you click the button. It only goes purple if you click the link directly.
I did some research and it seems that the .click is not suppose to work with 'a' tags because the browser does not suport "fake clicking" with javascript. I mean, you can't "click" an element with javascript. With 'a' tags you can trigger its onClick event but the link won't change colors (to the visited link color, the default is purple in most browsers). So it wouldn't make sense to make the $().click event work with 'a' tags since the act of going to the href attribute is not a part of the onClick event, but hardcoded in the browser.

If you look at the code for the $.click function, I'll bet there is a conditional statement that checks to see if the element has listeners registered for theclick event before it proceeds. Why not just get the href attribute from the link and manually change the page location?
window.location.href = $('a').attr('href');
Here is why it doesn't click through. From the trigger function, jQuery source for version 1.3.2:
// Handle triggering native .onfoo handlers (and on links since we don't call .click() for links)
if ( (!elem[type] || (jQuery.nodeName(elem, 'a') && type == "click")) && elem["on"+type] && elem["on"+type].apply( elem, data ) === false )
event.result = false;
// Trigger the native events (except for clicks on links)
if ( !bubbling && elem[type] && !event.isDefaultPrevented() && !(jQuery.nodeName(elem, 'a') && type == "click") ) {
this.triggered = true;
try {
elem[ type ]();
// Prevent Internet Explorer from throwing an error for some hidden elements
}
catch (e)
{
}
}
After it calls handlers (if there are any), jQuery triggers an event on the object. However it only calls native handlers for click events if the element is not a link. I guess this was done purposefully for some reason. This should be true though whether an event handler is defined or not, so I'm not sure why in your case attaching an event handler caused the native onClick handler to be called. You'll have to do what I did and step through the execution to see where it is being called.

JavaScript/jQuery doesn't support the default behavior of links "clicked" programmatically.
Instead, you can create a form and submit it. This way you don't have to use window.location or window.open, which are often blocked as unwanted popups by browsers.
This script has two different methods: one that tries to open three new tabs/windows (it opens only one in Internet Explorer and Chrome, more information is below) and one that fires a custom event on a link click.
Here is how:
HTML
<html>
<head>
<script src="jquery-1.9.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="script.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
<button id="testbtn">Test</button><br><br>
Google<br>
Wikipedia<br>
Stack Overflow
</body>
</html>
jQuery (file script.js)
$(function()
{
// Try to open all three links by pressing the button
// - Firefox opens all three links
// - Chrome only opens one of them without a popup warning
// - Internet Explorer only opens one of them WITH a popup warning
$("#testbtn").on("click", function()
{
$("a").each(function()
{
var form = $("<form></form>");
form.attr(
{
id : "formform",
action : $(this).attr("href"),
method : "GET",
// Open in new window/tab
target : "_blank"
});
$("body").append(form);
$("#formform").submit();
$("#formform").remove();
});
});
// Or click the link and fire a custom event
// (open your own window without following
// the link itself)
$("a").on("click", function()
{
var form = $("<form></form>");
form.attr(
{
id : "formform",
// The location given in the link itself
action : $(this).attr("href"),
method : "GET",
// Open in new window/tab
target : "_blank"
});
$("body").append(form);
$("#formform").submit();
$("#formform").remove();
// Prevent the link from opening normally
return false;
});
});
For each link element, it:
Creates a form
Gives it attributes
Appends it to the DOM so it can be submitted
Submits it
Removes the form from the DOM, removing all traces *Insert evil laugh*
Now you have a new tab/window loading "https://google.nl" (or any URL you want, just replace it). Unfortunately when you try to open more than one window this way, you get an Popup blocked messagebar when trying to open the second one (the first one is still opened).
More information on how I got to this method is found here:
Opening new window/tab without using window.open or window.location.href

Click handlers on anchor tags are a special case in jQuery.
I think you might be getting confused between the anchor's onclick event (known by the browser) and the click event of the jQuery object which wraps the DOM's notion of the anchor tag.
You can download the jQuery 1.3.2 source here.
The relevant sections of the source are lines 2643-2645 (I have split this out to multiple lines to make it easier to comprehend):
// Handle triggering native .onfoo handlers (and on links since we don't call .click() for links)
if (
(!elem[type] || (jQuery.nodeName(elem, 'a') && type == "click")) &&
elem["on"+type] &&
elem["on"+type].apply( elem, data ) === false
)
event.result = false;

You can use jQuery to select the jQuery object for that element. Then, get the underlying DOM element and call its click() method.
By id:
$("#my-link").each(function (index) { $(this).get(0).click() });
Or use jQuery to click a bunch of links by CSS class:
$(".my-link-class").each(function (index) { $(this).get(0).click() });

Trigger a hyperlink <a> element that is inside the element you want to hookup the jQuery .click() to:
<div class="TopicControl">
<div class="articleImage">
<img src="" alt="">
</div>
</div>
In your script you hookup to the main container you want the click event on. Then you use standard jQuery methodology to find the element (type, class, and id) and fire the click. jQuery enters a recursive function to fire the click and you break the recursive function by taking the event 'e' and stopPropagation() function and return false, because you don't want jQuery to do anything else but fire the link.
$('.TopicControl').click(function (event) {
$(this).find('a').click();
event.stopPropagation();
return false;
});
Alternative solution is to wrap the containers in the <a> element and place 's as containers inside instead of <div>'s. Set the spans to display block to conform with W3C standards.

It does nothing because no events have been bound to the event. If I recall correctly, jQuery maintains its own list of event handlers that are bound to NodeLists for performance and other purposes.

If you need this feature for one case or very few cases (your whole application is not requiring this feature). I would rather leave jQuery as is (for many reasons, including being able to update to newer versions, CDN, etc.) and have the following workaround:
// For modern browsers
$(ele).trigger("click");
// Relying on Paul Irish's conditional class names,
// <https://www.paulirish.com/2008/conditional-stylesheets-vs-css-hacks-answer-neither/>
// (via HTML5 Boilerplate, <https://html5boilerplate.com/>) where
// each Internet Explorer version gets a class of its version
$("html.ie7").length && (function(){
var eleOnClickattr = $(ele).attr("onclick")
eval(eleOnClickattr);
})()

To open hyperlink in the same tab, use:
$(document).on('click', "a.classname", function() {
var form = $("<form></form>");
form.attr(
{
id : "formid",
action : $(this).attr("href"),
method : "GET",
});
$("body").append(form);
$("#formid").submit();
$("#formid").remove();
return false;
});