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Attaching event listeners using OnClick= or with script

Although it has already been asked, I want to adress the issue of correct jQuery programming.
Method #1:
<script>
function DoClickAction() {
// Some work
return false;
}
</script>
Do some work
VS
Method #2:
<script>
$(function() {
$("#ActionButton").on("click", DoClickAction);
}
function DoClickAction() {
// Some work
return false;
}
</script>
Do some work
I'm having a discussion with my colleagues about this, and my opinion is that both methods have enough pro and cons to not be able to say "this is the right way", but if I have to choose I tend to prefer Method #1, this is why:
Method #1 pros:
When debugging someone else code, you can easily follow which jQuery code is executed when somebody presses the link.
When you dynamically load (AJAX call) the content, it will always work, no need to rebind your jQuery events.
Method #2 pros:
It will produce less HTML code for the browser to download, because the script file will be cached and the onclick attribute is not necessary. Although this example uses more code.
You can re-use the code easily by using the same attributes, although using the onclick with 1 function is kind of the same thing.
What are your thoughts on this?

Instead of listing the pro's of either method, let me focus on the con's of method 1:
Change a function name == change the entire markup
All event handlers reside in the global scope. Working with closures can be a bit of a pain, then.
adding new elements dynamically (through JS or via ajax response) means that you'll either have to parse the markup and add the attribute one by one, or you'll have to send markup containing, essentially, JS function calls. Not safe, not clean
Each attribute is a new listener. The more attributes you have, the heavier the event loop will become
Mixing JS and HTML is not considered good practice. Think of it as separation of concern. The markup is there to provide the client with a UI. JS's job (in a browser) is to enhance the user experience. They have to work together, but have different tasks. Hence, they should be treated as separate entities.
As far as the second method goes, the only "cons" I can think of are:
Your code is slightly harder to understand, but if somebody can't work out what an event listener is, he shouldn't be working on your code, IMO.
Debugging can be harder, and older browsers might leak (jQ does contain an awful lot of X-browser related code, so it doesn't apply here. It does when you're writing vanillaJS)
In addition to this, method2 has another major pro, that you've not listed: delegation. At first, delegation looks hard, but It's easy, jQuery's $.delegate makes it easier, still, using $.on with a selector also delegates the event.
Basically, delegation allows you to deal with all events, for example click, for the entire page, or a section of the page, using a single listener. This as opposed to binding the event to each and every element. Thus: 1 listener on the event loop versus tens/hundreds. It's pretty obvious which is the more performant way of doing things.
Suppose you have a navigation div on a page, that looks like this:
<div id='nav'>
<ul>
<li id='nav-home'>Some pseudo-link</li>
<li id='nav-page1'>Another</li>
</ul>
</div>
You want to pick up on the user, clicking one of the <li> tags. The first method you listed makes for a right mess: <li id='nav-home' onclick='clickNav(event, this)'>. I'm passing the event object and this (a DOM reference) to have access to everything delegation gives me access to.
Using delegation, I can simply do this:
//jQ
$('#nav').on('click','li',function(e)
{
$.ajax({//you know the gist
url: 'ajax/' + $(this).id().replace('nav-',''),
success: function(){}
});
});
//vanillaJS:
document.getElementById('nav').addEventListener('click',function(e)
{
e = e || window.event;
var target = e.target || e.srcElement;
if (e.tagName.toLowerCase() === 'li')
{
//perform ajax call
}
},false);

I myself am very much partial to #2, as it provides a clean separation of JavaScript and HTML. The negatives of not having the action of a button be immediately visible in the HTML can be completely negated by browser plugins.
Furthermore, as you've already stated, sometimes I want to attach an onclick event to, say, every row of a table, and setting the OnClick attribute of an element on every row is much more wasteful than simply attaching a click handler to each of them with a single line of code elsewhere.

Handle stuff after dom changes

I've got a page with some Javascript / jQuery stuff, for example:
(function()
{
$('.tip').tooltip();
$('.test').click(function()
{
alert('Clicked!')
});
}();
On the page I insert some HTML with jQuery so the DOM changes. For example, I insert a extra element with the class "tip" or "test". The just new inserted elements doesn't work because jQuery is working with the non-manipulated DOM and the just inserted elements aren't there. So I've searched around and came to this solution for the "click":
$('body').on('click','.click',function()
{
alert('Clicked!')
});
I don't understand why, but this way it's working with the manipulated DOM and the jQuery stuff works on the new inserted elements. So my first question is, why does this work and just the click() function not? And the second question, why do I have to point to the "body"?
Finally, my third question is, how get this done with the tooltip?
I know that there is so many information about this subject (previous the delegate() and live() function I've read) but I can't found a explanation about it. And I can't get my third question solved with the information I found.
I'm looking forward to your responses!
Extra question:
4) Is it recommended to point always to the "body" for this kind of situations? It's always there but for possible performance issues?

So my first question is, why does this work and just the click()
function not?
Because the event handler is now delegated to a parent element, so it remains even after replacing/manipulating child elements.
Ancient article on event delegation for your perusal - but the concepts remain the same:
http://www.sitepoint.com/javascript-event-delegation-is-easier-than-you-think/
And the second question, why do I have to point to the "body"
You don't, any suitable parent element will do. For example, any direct parent (a div wrapper, for instance) which does not get replaced.
Finally, my third question is, how get this done with the tooltip?
You need to re-initialize your tooltip plugin on the newly inserted elements. For example:
$.get("foo.html", function (html) {
$("#someDiv").html(html);
$("#someDiv").find(".tip").tooltip();
});

The click() event doesn't work when you manipulate the DOM because JQuery is not watching for DOM changes. When you bind the click() event it is selecting the elements that are on the page at that time. New ones are not in the list unless you explicitly bind the event.
Because you have pointed the click() event on the body. JQuery then checks to see if the target of the click matches any of the event handlers (like what you have created) match the element clicked. This way any new elements will get the event 'associated' with them.
Because the tooltip isn't an event that you can place on the body, you will need to re-initialize it when the element is created.
EDIT:
For your fourth question, is it depends. The advantage of binding to the body is that you don't accidentally bind an event to an element more than once. The disadvantage is that you are adding event handlers that need to be checked on each event and this can lead to performance issues.
As for your concerns about DRY, put the initialization of the tooltips into a function and call that when you add them. Trying to avoid having the same function call is a little overkill in this regard, IMO.

Events are bound to the specific object you are binding it to.
So something like $('.tip').tooltip() will perform the tooltip() functionality on $('.tip') which is actually just a collection of objects that satisfies the css selector .tip. The thing you should take note of is, that collection is not dynamic, it is basically a "database" query of the current page, and returns a resultset of HTML DOM objects wrapped by jQuery.
Therefore calling tooptip() on that collection will only perform the tooltip functionality on the objects within that collection, anything that was not in that collection when tooltip is called will not have the tooltip functionality. So adding an element that satisfies the .tip selector, after the tooltip() call, will not give it the tooltip functionality.
Now, $('body').on('click','.click', func) is actually binding the click event to the body tag (which should always exist :P), but what happens is it captures whether the click event has passed through an element your target css selector (.click in this case), so since the check is done dynamically, new elements will be captured.
This is a relatively short summary of what's going on... I hope it helped
UPDATE:
Best way for your tooltip thing is to bind tooltip after you have added elements, e.g.
$('#container').load('www.example.com/stuff', function() {
$('.tip', $(this)).tooltip();
});

Javascript variable using jquery to find variable

i made a fiddle with buttons. Now in the javascript, I'm trying to learn jquery and by doing so I'm converting old fiddles into jquery from javascript however I know how.
My problem is that in my function called init, I can't figure out how to convert the javascript way of get an html element with an id stored in a variable.
Old code in javascript:
var but = document.getElementById("but");
New code in jQuery:
var but = $('#but');
I think the problem is that I start with a javascript statement but then use jQuery. I don't know what to do in terms of variables in jQuery.

You need to add in [0] to your jquery code to get the document element, but that is rather pointless with the jquery method of adding event listeners. I would suggest either $('#but').mouseout(etc) or $('#but').on('mouseout', etc).
I've updated your jsfiddle to work as expected, though I'll attempt to give a short tut here:
There are two methods of adding event listeners you should familiarize yourself with per the jquery documentation; the .on() method, and the .(event)() method. The latter you can add to jquery ojects in lieu of object.(eventName)() as an example, adding the click handler to an object: object.click(function() { console.log('executed'); });
This method however is not 'live' it will not update itself if the elements are added dynamically, and the events are only attached when the document is ready($(document).ready(function() { do stuff });). In order to attach events to dynamically added elements, we need the .on() method.
Take for example the following html:
<div class="wrapper">
<span class="dynamically_added">stuff</span>
</div>
In order to attach an event listener to the dynamically added span, in your jquery, add the following:
$(".wrapper").on('click', '.dynamically_added', function() {
console.log('executed');
});
The first parameter of .on() is(are) the event(s). You can attach multiple events by delimiting them with spaces: .on('click hover'). The second parameter is either the function to execute, or the targeted element. In the case of the above example it is the span. The last parameter is of course the function to execute. As far as I am aware, you need to have an anonymous function to refer to the function to execute, instead of simply writing it there.
I hope this has helped.

$('#but') returns a jQuery object, not a DOM object. You can either call jQuery methods on that or you can get the DOM object out of it, but you can't use DOM methods directly on it. If you want the DOM object out of it, you can get it with:
$('#but')[0]
And, your method would be this:
function init() {
var but = $('#but')[0];
but.addEventListener("mouseover", butResult, false);
but.addEventListener("mouseout", reverse, false);
var button = $('#button')[0];
button.addEventListener("mouseover", buttonResult, false);
button.addEventListener("mouseout", reverse, false);
}
Or, instead of using native DOM methods, you can use jQuery methods on the jQuery object.
function init() {
$('#but').on("mouseover", butResult).on("mouseout", reverse);
$('#button').on("mouseover", buttonResult).on("mouseout", reverse);
}

Not sure if I understand you ? completely, but, is this what you're roughly looking for:
var b1 = document.getElementById('button');
var b2 = $(b1);
b2.click( function(){
alert('hi');
})

onclick event not firing javascript

EDIT #2:
Made a JS Fiddle... http://jsfiddle.net/N2p6G/ (I hardcoded some stuff that I'm certain works correctly, but the problem is still there)
Original:
So, I have written tens of thousands of lines of javascript, and used code that look like this a hundreds of times and I don't understand what's going on.
blacklistitembutton.onclick = function() {
console.log("clicked.");
}
The above code does not seem to be working... and I can't figure out why
In fact, I use the same method earlier in the same file... and it works fine!
settings.onclick = function() {
settings_popup.toggle();
}
EDIT:
Might it have something to do with the fact that it's being executed in a for loop?
Here is the code...
var blacklistButton = document.createElement('input');
blacklistButton.type = 'button';
blacklistButton.value = "Add Current Site to Blacklist";
blacklistButton.onclick = function() {
console.log('blacklistButton clicked');
}
for (var i=0;i<blacklist.length;i++) {
var blacklistitembutton = document.createElement('div');
blacklistitembutton.type = 'button';
blacklistitembutton.blacklistValue = blacklist[i];
blacklistitembutton.value = "X";
blacklistitembutton.onclick = function() {
console.log("clicked.");
}
}
Then both blacklistButton and all of the blacklistitembuttons are put into the document through element.appendChild (and they all show up successfully!)
The blacklistButton onclick fires just fine, and the blacklistitembutton onclick does not.

document.addEventListener('click', function(){
console.log('clicked');
}, false);
Edit:
Here is a re-write of your code in a fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/N2p6G/1/
There are a lot of things in your code that worry me. Hopefully from my re-write you can see there are better ways to handle some things.
1) I'm not sure why you are using document.write() at the beginning. That has very little purpose.
2) You are modifying the DOM way too much. Some of the DOM elements you are creating in code are better-served as just being target locations in html. Only the dynamically-created input button elements need to be done in javascript. Remember, modifying the DOM should be done as little as possible.
3) Don't assign events using the onclick, onsubmit, onhover, etc syntax. Events should only be bound to DOM elements using addEventListener. The other benefit of doing it the proper way is that you can assign multiple events of the same type, if need be, to the same element. Also, with some extra state code that I haven't included, you can selectively remove particular events later if you need to.
4) There was a debate several years ago about whether using innerHTML and string templates was faster/better than using DOM creation methods. For a while, the best solution was to use documentFragments and a combination of the two methods. These days, it doesn't really matter anymore since all browsers are pretty damn fast, so for simplicity's sake is good to just go with innerHTML.
This also goes back to the rule of "don't touch the DOM too much". If you look at my code, you can see that I'm assembling the final html simply as an array of elements that gets joined as a single string at the end. Its then rendered to the DOM with a single innerHTML statement. I'm only touching the DOM one time, instead of multiple times.
5) The last bit goes into events again. At the beginning and end of the code you can see where and how I've added the events for the DOM elements. Indeed, the addEventListener at the beginning could be moved to the end to group all the event declarations together, but it doesn't really matter. I left it at the top to help you understand what's going on better.
Hope this helps.

For unlimited event bindings, either use addEventListener or attachEvent method. You cannot add more than one event of the same type using that traditional method.

I don't know if it's a typo in what you put here, but in the loop you are creating a "div" and then assigning it a type of "button". Does that work or is it throwing an error? If it is then that explains why the event handler is not getting the function. Try making it an "input" and see if it now works.

Fixed it!
blacklistitem.innerHTML += blacklist[i];
^ was messing it up, at this point in the code blacklistitem is still a javascript item, not yet appended to its to-be parent element in the document
So I just stuck blacklist[i] into a span tag and appended as a child and now it works fine :)

How can I dynamically change css for html that is generated by javascript at runtime?

I have some html that is generated programmatically using javascript at runtime.
I want to be able to dynamically change the css properties of this html
e.g.
$(".pointsbox").css("background-color","green");
but it appears to not work as those html elements are not available at the time that the css change is called.
I am pretty sure I have managed to do this before but I've forgotten what the function is called.
Any help much appreciated!

You haven't posted code on how exactly you create your HTML elements, but it can be something as simple as this:
You can create an HTML element by passing HTML into the jQuery function right?
var new_element = $('<div>');
Well, you can treat that like any other jQuery object, and just manipulate its CSS right then and there.
var new_element = $('<div>').css('background-color', 'green');
Heck, you can even chain the create, the css change and the DOM insert in one call.
var new_element = $('<div>')
.css('background-color', 'green')
.appendTo('#container')
;

There are the Mutation events - specifically the DOMNodeInserted event - that you could bind an event handler to. However, as the page I linked states, it's recommended that you don't because it has a serious negative effect on the performance of your page and the cross-browser support isn't particularly good.
An alternative is to simulate your own DOMNodeInserted event using a custom event. Essentially you bind a handler for a custom event (say nodeinserted) on the document, then trigger that event whenever you have code that dynamically modifies the structure of your page. Code might look something like the following:
$(document).on('nodeinserted', function() {
$('.pointsbox').css('background-color', 'green');
});
function modifyPage() {
// code to modify your page here
$(document).trigger('nodeinserted');
}
Note that, with this approach, you'll need to modify all functions that add elements to the page to trigger that nodeinserted custom event.

I use this. It ensures the DOM has loaded.
$(document).ready(function(){
//code here
$(".pointsbox").css("background-color","green");
});