jQuery trigger event when click outside the element

Question

$(document).click(function(evt) {
    var target = evt.currentTarget;
    var inside = $(".menuWraper");
    if (target != inside) {
        alert("bleep");
    }

});

I am trying to figure out how to make it so that if a user clicks outside of a certain div (menuWraper), it triggers an event.. I realized I can just make every click fire an event, then check if the clicked currentTarget is same as the object selected from $(".menuWraper"). However, this doesn't work, currentTarget is HTML object(?) and $(".menuWraper") is Object object? I am very confused.

Answer 1

The most common application here is closing on clicking the document but not when it came from within that element, for this you want to stop the bubbling, like this:

$(".menuWrapper").click(function(e) {
  e.stopPropagation(); //stops click event from reaching document
});
$(document).click(function() {
  $(".menuWrapper").hide(); //click came from somewhere else
});

All were doing here is preventing the click from bubbling up (via event.stopPrpagation()) when it came from within a .menuWrapper element. If this didn't happen, the click came from somewhere else, and will by default make it's way up to document, if it gets there, we hide those .menuWrapper elements.

Answer 2

Just have your menuWraper element call event.stopPropagation() so that its click event doesn't bubble up to the document.

Try it out: http://jsfiddle.net/Py7Mu/

$(document).click(function() {
    alert('clicked outside');
});

$(".menuWraper").click(function(event) {
    alert('clicked inside');
    event.stopPropagation();
});

• http://api.jquery.com/event.stopPropagation/

Alternatively, you could return false; instead of using event.stopPropagation();

Answer 3

I do not think document fires the click event. Try using the body element to capture the click event. Might need to check on that...

Answer 4

try these..

$(document).click(function(evt) {
    var target = evt.target.className;
    var inside = $(".menuWraper");
    //alert($(target).html());
    if ($.trim(target) != '') {
        if ($("." + target) != inside) {
            alert("bleep");
        }
    }
});