Terminology
From quirksmode.org:
Event capturing
When you use event capturing
| |
---------------| |-----------------
| element1 | | |
| -----------| |----------- |
| |element2 \ / | |
| ------------------------- |
| Event CAPTURING |
-----------------------------------
the event handler of element1 fires first, the event handler of element2 fires last.
Event bubbling
When you use event bubbling
/ \
---------------| |-----------------
| element1 | | |
| -----------| |----------- |
| |element2 | | | |
| ------------------------- |
| Event BUBBLING |
-----------------------------------
the event handler of element2 fires first, the event handler of element1 fires last.
Any event taking place in the W3C event model is first captured until it reaches the target element and then bubbles up again.
| | / \
-----------------| |--| |-----------------
| element1 | | | | |
| -------------| |--| |----------- |
| |element2 \ / | | | |
| -------------------------------- |
| W3C event model |
------------------------------------------
Interface
From w3.org, for event capture:
If the capturing EventListener
wishes to prevent further processing of
the event from occurring it may call the stopPropagation
method of the
Event
interface. This will prevent further dispatch of the event,
although additional EventListeners
registered at the same hierarchy
level will still receive the event. Once an event's stopPropagation
method has been called, further calls to that method have no
additional effect. If no additional capturers exist and
stopPropagation
has not been called, the event triggers the
appropriate EventListeners
on the target itself.
For event bubbling:
Any event handler may choose to prevent further event propagation by
calling the stopPropagation
method of the Event
interface. If any
EventListener
calls this method, all additional EventListeners
on the
current EventTarget
will be triggered but bubbling will cease at that
level. Only one call to stopPropagation
is required to prevent further
bubbling.
For event cancelation:
Cancelation is accomplished by calling the Event
's preventDefault
method. If one or more EventListeners
call preventDefault
during
any phase of event flow the default action will be canceled.
Examples
In the following examples, a click on the hyperlink in the web browser triggers the event's flow (the event listeners are executed) and the event target's default action (a new tab is opened).
HTML:
<div id="a">
<a id="b" href="http://www.google.com/" target="_blank">Google</a>
</div>
<p id="c"></p>
JavaScript:
var el = document.getElementById("c");
function capturingOnClick1(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "DIV event capture<br>";
}
function capturingOnClick2(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "A event capture<br>";
}
function bubblingOnClick1(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "DIV event bubbling<br>";
}
function bubblingOnClick2(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "A event bubbling<br>";
}
// The 3rd parameter useCapture makes the event listener capturing (false by default)
document.getElementById("a").addEventListener("click", capturingOnClick1, true);
document.getElementById("b").addEventListener("click", capturingOnClick2, true);
document.getElementById("a").addEventListener("click", bubblingOnClick1, false);
document.getElementById("b").addEventListener("click", bubblingOnClick2, false);
Example 1: it results in the output
DIV event capture
A event capture
A event bubbling
DIV event bubbling
Example 2: adding stopPropagation()
to the function
function capturingOnClick1(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "DIV event capture<br>";
ev.stopPropagation();
}
results in the output
DIV event capture
The event listener prevented further downward and upward propagation of the event. However it did not prevent the default action (a new tab opening).
Example 3: adding stopPropagation()
to the function
function capturingOnClick2(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "A event capture<br>";
ev.stopPropagation();
}
or the function
function bubblingOnClick2(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "A event bubbling<br>";
ev.stopPropagation();
}
results in the output
DIV event capture
A event capture
A event bubbling
This is because both event listeners are registered on the same event target. The event listeners prevented further upward propagation of the event. However they did not prevent the default action (a new tab opening).
Example 4: adding preventDefault()
to any function, for instance
function capturingOnClick1(ev) {
el.innerHTML += "DIV event capture<br>";
ev.preventDefault();
}
prevents a new tab from opening.
event.stop
function... Also weird I've never had trouble with that. I use bubbling a lot. Thanks for the example! – Blanding