Preventing click event with jQuery drag and drop

Question

I have elements on the page which are draggable with jQuery. Do these elements have click event which navigates to another page (ordinary links for example).

What is the best way to prevent click from firing on dropping such element while allowing clicking it is not dragged and drop state?

I have this problem with sortable elements but think it is good to have a solution for general drag and drop.

I've solved the problem for myself. After that I found that same solution exists for Scriptaculous, but maybe someone has a better way to achieve that.

Answer 1

A solution that worked well for me and that doesn't require a timeout: (yes I'm a bit pedantic ;-)

I add a marker class to the element when dragging starts, e.g. 'noclick'. When the element is dropped, the click event is triggered -- more precisely if dragging ends, actually it doesn't have to be dropped onto a valid target. In the click handler, I remove the marker class if present, otherwise the click is handled normally.

$('your selector').draggable({
    start: function(event, ui) {
        $(this).addClass('noclick');
    }
});

$('your selector').click(function(event) {
    if ($(this).hasClass('noclick')) {
        $(this).removeClass('noclick');
    }
    else {
        // actual click event code
    }
});

Answer 2

Solution is to add click handler that will prevent click to propagate on start of drag. And then remove that handler after drop is performed. The last action should be delayed a bit for click prevention to work.

Solution for sortable:

...
.sortable({
...
        start: function(event, ui) {
            ui.item.bind("click.prevent",
                function(event) { event.preventDefault(); });
        },
        stop: function(event, ui) {
            setTimeout(function(){ui.item.unbind("click.prevent");}, 300);
        }
...
})

Solution for draggable:

...
.draggable({
...
        start: function(event, ui) {
            ui.helper.bind("click.prevent",
                function(event) { event.preventDefault(); });
        },
        stop: function(event, ui) {
            setTimeout(function(){ui.helper.unbind("click.prevent");}, 300);
        }
...
})

Answer 3

I had the same problem and tried multiple approaches and none worked for me.

Solution 1

$('.item').click(function(e)
{            
    if ( $(this).is('.ui-draggable-dragging') ) return false;
});  

does nothing for me. The item is being clicked after the dragging is done.

Solution 2 (by Tom de Boer)

$('.item').draggable(
{   
    stop: function(event, ui) 
    {
         $( event.originalEvent.target).one('click', function(e){ e.stopImmediatePropagation(); } );
    }
});

This works just fine but fails in one case- when I was going fullscreen onclick:

var body = $('body')[0];     
req = body.requestFullScreen || body.webkitRequestFullScreen || body.mozRequestFullScreen;
req.call(body); 

Solution 3 (by Sasha Yanovets)

 $('.item').draggable({
        start: function(event, ui) {
            ui.helper.bind("click.prevent",
                function(event) { event.preventDefault(); });
        },
        stop: function(event, ui) {
            setTimeout(function(){ui.helper.unbind("click.prevent");}, 300);
        }
})

This does not work for me.

Solution 4- the only one that worked just fine

$('.item').draggable(
{   
});
$('.item').click(function(e)
{  
});

Yep, that's it- the correct order does the trick- first you need to bind draggable() then click() event. Even when I put fullscreen toggling code in click() event it still didn't go to fullscreen when dragging. Perfect for me!

Answer 4

I'd like to add to this that it seems preventing the click event only works if the click event is defined AFTER the draggable or sortable event. If the click is added first, it gets activated on drag.

Answer 5

I don't really like to use timers or preventing, so what I did is this:

var el, dragged

el = $( '#some_element' );

el.on( 'mousedown', onMouseDown );
el.on( 'mouseup', onMouseUp );
el.draggable( { start: onStartDrag } );

onMouseDown = function( ) {
  dragged = false;
}

onMouseUp = function( ) {
  if( !dragged ) {
    console.log('no drag, normal click')
  }
}

onStartDrag = function( ) {
  dragged = true;
}

Rocksolid..

Answer 6

lex82's version but for .sortable()

 start: function(event, ui){
 ui.item.find('.ui-widget-header').addClass('noclick');
 },

and you may only need:

 start: function(event, ui){
 ui.item.addClass('noclick');
 },

and here's what I'm using for the toggle:

$("#datasign-widgets .ui-widget-header").click(function(){
if ($(this).hasClass('noclick')) {
$(this).removeClass('noclick');

}
else {
$(this).next().slideToggle();
$(this).find('.ui-icon').toggleClass("ui-icon-minusthick").toggleClass("ui-icon-plusthick");
}
});

Answer 7

A possible alternative for Sasha's answer without preventing default:

var tmp_handler;
.sortable({
        start : function(event,ui){
            tmp_handler = ui.item.data("events").click[0].handler;
            ui.item.off();
        },
        stop : function(event,ui){
            setTimeout(function(){ui.item.on("click", tmp_handler)}, 300);
        },

Answer 8

In jQuery UI, elements being dragged are given the class "ui-draggable-dragging".
We can therefore use this class to determine whether to click or not, just delay the event.
You don't need to use the "start" or "stop" callback functions, simply do:

$('#foo').on('mouseup', function () {
    if (! $(this).hasClass('ui-draggable-dragging')) {
        // your click function
    }
});

This is triggered from "mouseup", rather than "mousedown" or "click" - so there's a slight delay, might not be perfect - but it's easier than other solutions suggested here.

Answer 9

After reading through this and a few threads this was the solution I went with.

var dragging = false;
$("#sortable").mouseover(function() {
    $(this).parent().sortable({
        start: function(event, ui) {
            dragging = true;
        },
        stop: function(event, ui) {
            // Update Code here
        }
    })
});
$("#sortable").click(function(mouseEvent){
    if (!dragging) {
        alert($(this).attr("id"));
    } else {
        dragging = false;
    }
});

Answer 10

In my case it worked like this:

$('#draggable').draggable({
  start: function(event, ui) {
    $(event.toElement).one('click', function(e) { e.stopPropagation(); });
  }
});

Answer 11

the most easy and robust solution? just create transparent element over your draggable.

.click-passthrough {
  position: absolute;
  left: 0;
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  background: transparent;
}

element.draggable({        
        start: function () {

        },
        drag: function(event, ui) {
            // important! if create the 'cover' in start, then you will not see click events at all
                  if (!element.find('.click-passthrough').length) {
                      element.append("<div class='click-passthrough'></div>");
                  }
        },
        stop: function() {
          // remove the cover
          element.find('.click-passthrough').remove();
        }
    });

Answer 12

Have you tried disabling the link using event.preventDefault(); in the start event and re-enabling it in the drag stopped event or drop event using unbind?

Answer 13

Just a little wrinkle to add to the answers given above. I had to make a div that contains a SalesForce element draggable, but the SalesForce element has an onclick action defined in the html through some VisualForce gobbledigook.

Obviously this violates the "define click action after the drag action" rule, so as a workaround I redefined the SalesForce element's action to be triggered "onDblClick", and used this code for the container div:

$(this).draggable({
        zIndex: 999,
        revert: true,
        revertDuration: 0,
        start: function(event, ui) {
                   $(this).addClass('noclick');
                }
});

$(this).click(function(){
    if( $(this).hasClass('noclick'))
    {
        $(this).removeClass('noclick');
    }
    else
    {
        $(this).children(":first").trigger('dblclick');
    }
});

The parent's click event essentially hides the need to double-click the child element, leaving the user experience intact.

Answer 14

I tried like this:

var dragging = true; 

$(this).click(function(){
  if(!dragging){
    do str...
  }
});

$(this).draggable({
  start: function(event, ui) {
      dragging = true;
  },

  stop: function(event, ui) {
      setTimeout(function(){dragging = false;}, 300);
  }

});

Answer 15

for me helped passing the helper in options object as:

.sortable({
   helper : 'clone', 
   start:function(), 
   stop:function(),
   .....
});

Seems cloning dom element that is dragged prevented the bubbling of the event. I couldn´t avoid it with any eventPropagation, bubbling, etc. This was the only working solution for me.

Answer 16

The onmousedown and onmouseup events worked in one of my smaller projects.

var mousePos = [0,0];
function startClick()
{
    mousePos = [event.clientX,event.clientY];
}
        
function endClick()
{
    if ( event.clientX != mousePos[0] && event.clientY != mousePos[1] )
    {
        alert( "DRAG CLICK" );
    }
    else
    {
        alert( "CLICK" );
    }
}

<img src=".." onmousedown="startClick();" onmouseup="endClick();" />

Yes, I know. Not the cleanest way, but you get the idea.