I have searched for a good solution everywhere, yet I can't find one which does not use jQuery.
Is there a cross-browser, normal way (without weird hacks or easy to break code), to detect a click outside of an element (which may or may not have children)?
Add an event listener to document and use Node.contains() to find whether the target of the event (which is the inner-most clicked element) is inside your specified element. It works even in IE5
const specifiedElement = document.getElementById('a')
// I'm using "click" but it works with any event
document.addEventListener('click', event => {
const isClickInside = specifiedElement.contains(event.target)
if (!isClickInside) {
// The click was OUTSIDE the specifiedElement, do something
}
})
var specifiedElement = document.getElementById('a');
//I'm using "click" but it works with any event
document.addEventListener('click', function(event) {
var isClickInside = specifiedElement.contains(event.target);
if (isClickInside) {
alert('You clicked inside A')
} else {
alert('You clicked outside A')
}
});div {
margin: auto;
padding: 1em;
max-width: 6em;
background: rgba(0, 0, 0, .2);
text-align: center;
}Is the click inside A or outside?
<div id="a">A
<div id="b">B
<div id="c">C</div>
</div>
</div>You need to handle the click event on document level. In the event object, you have a target property, the inner-most DOM element that was clicked. With this you check itself and walk up its parents until the document element, if one of them is your watched element.
See the example on jsFiddle
document.addEventListener("click", function (e) {
var level = 0;
for (var element = e.target; element; element = element.parentNode) {
if (element.id === 'x') {
document.getElementById("out").innerHTML = (level ? "inner " : "") + "x clicked";
return;
}
level++;
}
document.getElementById("out").innerHTML = "not x clicked";
});
As always, this isn't cross-bad-browser compatible because of addEventListener/attachEvent, but it works like this.
A child is clicked, when not event.target, but one of it's parents is the watched element (i'm simply counting level for this). You may also have a boolean var, if the element is found or not, to not return the handler from inside the for clause. My example is limiting to that the handler only finishes, when nothing matches.
Adding cross-browser compatability, I'm usually doing it like this:
var addEvent = function (element, eventName, fn, useCapture) {
if (element.addEventListener) {
element.addEventListener(eventName, fn, useCapture);
}
else if (element.attachEvent) {
element.attachEvent(eventName, function (e) {
fn.apply(element, arguments);
}, useCapture);
}
};
This is cross-browser compatible code for attaching an event listener/handler, inclusive rewriting this in IE, to be the element, as like jQuery does for its event handlers. There are plenty of arguments to have some bits of jQuery in mind ;)
target property (which, as metadings says, will be the inner-most DOM element) - and all its parent elements. Either you reach your watched element, which means the user clicked inside it, or you reach the document element, in which case he/she clicked outside. Alternatively, you could add two click listeners - one on the document element, and another on the watched element, which uses event.stopPropagation()/cancelBubble so that the listener on the document element is only triggered by a click outside the watched element.for. Out of curiosity, would there be any reason not to compare an element from a variable with the target on the event (using strict comparison)?
How about this:
document.onclick = function(event){
var hasParent = false;
for(var node = event.target; node != document.body; node = node.parentNode)
{
if(node.id == 'div1'){
hasParent = true;
break;
}
}
if(hasParent)
alert('inside');
else
alert('outside');
}
you can use composePath() to check if the click happened outside or inside of a target div that may or may not have children:
const targetDiv = document.querySelector('#targetDiv')
document.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
const isClickedInsideDiv = e.composedPath().includes(targetDiv)
if (isClickedInsideDiv) {
console.log('clicked inside of div')
} else {
console.log('clicked outside of div')
}
})
I did a lot of research on it to find a better method. JavaScript method .contains go recursively in DOM to check whether it contains target or not. I used it in one of react project but when react DOM changes on set state, .contains method does not work. SO i came up with this solution
//Basic Html snippet
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="mydiv">
<h2>
click outside this div to test
</h2>
Check click outside
</div>
</body>
</html>
//Implementation in Vanilla javaScript
const node = document.getElementById('mydiv')
//minor css to make div more obvious
node.style.width = '300px'
node.style.height = '100px'
node.style.background = 'red'
let isCursorInside = false
//Attach mouseover event listener and update in variable
node.addEventListener('mouseover', function() {
isCursorInside = true
console.log('cursor inside')
})
/Attach mouseout event listener and update in variable
node.addEventListener('mouseout', function() {
isCursorInside = false
console.log('cursor outside')
})
document.addEventListener('click', function() {
//And if isCursorInside = false it means cursor is outside
if(!isCursorInside) {
alert('Outside div click detected')
}
})
using the js Element.closest() method:
let popup = document.querySelector('.parent-element')
popup.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
if (!e.target.closest('.child-element')) {
// clicked outside
}
});
To hide element by click outside of it I usually apply such simple code:
var bodyTag = document.getElementsByTagName('body');
var element = document.getElementById('element');
function clickedOrNot(e) {
if (e.target !== element) {
// action in the case of click outside
bodyTag[0].removeEventListener('click', clickedOrNot, true);
}
}
bodyTag[0].addEventListener('click', clickedOrNot, true);Another very simple and quick approach to this problem is to map the array of path into the event object returned by the listener. If the id or class name of your element matches one of those in the array, the click is inside your element.
(This solution can be useful if you don't want to get the element directly (e.g: document.getElementById('...'), for example in a reactjs/nextjs app, in ssr..).
Here is an example:
document.addEventListener('click', e => {
let clickedOutside = true;
e.path.forEach(item => {
if (!clickedOutside)
return;
if (item.className === 'your-element-class')
clickedOutside = false;
});
if (clickedOutside)
// Make an action if it's clicked outside..
});
I hope this answer will help you ! (Let me know if my solution is not a good solution or if you see something to improve.)
