Prevent Default Event Actions Using MooTools 1.2

By  on  

Many sweet JavaScript events are trigger by clicking on a link or a submit button. What if you don't want the browser to follow the link? What if you don't want the form to be submitted traditionally? MooTools allows you to prevent the default actions of most elements by using the preventDefault() method.

The Sample XHTML

<p><a href="http://scriptandstyle.com" class="prevent">ScriptAndStyle.com</a></p>
<p><input type="checkbox" class="prevent" /></p>
<p><input type="submit" class="prevent" value="Submit Form" /></p>

The action of any element with the prevent class will be nullified upon click.

The MooTools 1.2 Code

window.addEvent('domready', function() {
	$each($$('.prevent'),function(el) {
		el.addEvent('click',function(event) {
			event.preventDefault();
		});
	});
});

You can also prevent the browser from allowing image dragging! I did, however, notice that this function did not work correctly on a radio input.

Recent Features

  • By
    Designing for Simplicity

    Before we get started, it's worth me spending a brief moment introducing myself to you. My name is Mark (or @integralist if Twitter happens to be your communication tool of choice) and I currently work for BBC News in London England as a principal engineer/tech...

  • By
    5 Ways that CSS and JavaScript Interact That You May Not Know About

    CSS and JavaScript:  the lines seemingly get blurred by each browser release.  They have always done a very different job but in the end they are both front-end technologies so they need do need to work closely.  We have our .js files and our .css, but...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Record Text Selections Using MooTools or jQuery AJAX

    One technique I'm seeing more and more these days (CNNSI.com, for example) is AJAX recording of selected text. It makes sense -- if you detect users selecting the terms over and over again, you can probably assume your visitors are searching that term on Google...

  • By
    Introducing MooTools HeatMap

    It's often interesting to think about where on a given element, whether it be the page, an image, or a static DIV, your users are clicking.  With that curiosity in mind, I've created HeatMap: a MooTools class that allows you to detect, load, save, and...

Discussion

  1. thomasd

    You can use the $lambda function and a little bit of the Elements-Class magic to make this a one-liner:

    window.addEvent('domready', function() {
           //Now every click on one of the .prevent-Elements returns a 'false' and the propagation of the event gets stopped.
        $$('.prevent').addEvent('click',$lambda(false));
    });
    
  2. @thomasd: Sweet tip!

  3. asdf123

    i found that the method that fails the least is:

    $("bla").addEvent('click',function(_e){
    
    new Event(_e).preventDefault().stopPropagation();
    
    
    //alternatively:
    
    new Event(_e).stop();
    
    //or very simple in mootools 1.2:
    
    return false;
    
    })
    

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!