I'm handling both the click and dblclick event on a DOM element. Each one carries out a different command, but I find that when double clicking on the element, in addition to firing the double click event, the click event is also fired twice. What is the best approach for preventing this behavior?
43
votes
13 Answers
18
votes
In a comment, you said,
I delay the click handler by 300 ms (a noticeable and annoying delay) and even ...
So it sounds like what you want is that when you click then the DOM should geneate a click event immediately, except not if the click is the first click of a double-click.
To implement this feature, when you click, the DOM would need to be able to predict whether this is the final click or whether it's the first of a double-click (however I don't think is possible in general for the DOM to predict whether the user is about to click again).
What are the two distinct actions which you're trying to take on click and double-click? IMO, in a normal application you might want both events: e.g. single-click to focus on an element and then double-click to activate it.
When you must separate the events, some applications use something other than double-click: for example, they use right-click, or control-click.
34
votes
In case anyone else stumbles on this (as I did) looking for an answer, the absolute best solution that I could come up with is the following:
$node.on('click',function(e){
if(e.originalEvent.detail > 1){
return;
/* if you are returning a value from this
function then return false or cancel
the event some other way */
}
});
Done. If there is more than one click back to back, the second, third,etc. will not fire. I definitely prefer this to using any sort of timers.
I got myself pointed in this direction by reading this.
Incidentally: I was first researching this problem because I accidentally double clicked a paginated link, and the event fired and finished twice before the callback could happen.
Before coming up with the code above, I had
if e.originalEvent.detail === 2 //return
however, I was able to click on the link 3 times (a triple click), and though the second click didn't fire, the third did
10
votes
You can use UIEvent.detail if you want to detect how many times the element was clicked and fire events based on that.
A simple example:
element.addEventListener("click", function (e) {
if (e.detail === 1) {
// do something if the element was clicked once.
} else if (e.detail === 2) {
// do something else if the element was clicked twice
}
});
6
votes
3
votes
AFAIK DOM Level 2 Events makes no specification for double-click. It doesn't work for me on IE7 (there's a shock), but FF and Opera have no problem managing the spec, where I can attach all actions to the click event, but for double-click just wait till the "detail" attribute of the event object is 2. From the docs: "If multiple clicks occur at the same screen location, the sequence repeats with the detail attribute incrementing with each repetition."
3
votes
Thanks to all the other answers here as the combination of them seems to provide a reasonable solution for me when the interaction requires both, but mutually exclusive:
var pendingClick = 0;
function xorClick(e) {
// kill any pending single clicks
if (pendingClick) {
clearTimeout(pendingClick);
pendingClick = 0;
}
switch (e.detail) {
case 1:
pendingClick = setTimeout(function() {
console.log('single click action here');
}, 500);// should match OS multi-click speed
break;
case 2:
console.log('double click action here');
break;
default:
console.log('higher multi-click actions can be added as needed');
break;
}
}
myElem.addEventListener('click', xorClick, false);
Update: I added a generalized version of this approach along with a click polyfill for touch devices to this Github repo with examples:
3
votes
Here is what I did to distinguish within a module
node.on('click', function(e) {
//Prepare for double click, continue to clickHandler doesn't come soon enough
console.log("cleared timeout in click",_this.clickTimeout);
clearTimeout(_this.clickTimeout);
_this.clickTimeout = setTimeout(function(){
console.log("handling click");
_this.onClick(e);
},200);
console.log(_this.clickTimeout);
});
node.on('dblclick', function (e) {
console.log("cleared timeout in dblclick",_this.clickTimeout);
clearTimeout(_this.clickTimeout);
// Rest of the handler function
2
votes
I use this solution for my project to prevent click event action, if I had dblclick event that should do different thing.
Note: this solution is just for click and dblclick and not any other thing like tripleclick or etc.
To see proper time between click and double click see this
sorry for my bad English. I hope it helps :)
var button, isDblclick, timeoutTiming;
var clickTimeout, dblclickTimeout;
//-----
button = $('#button');
isDblclick = false;
/*
the proper time between click and dblclick is not standardized,
and is cutsomizable by user apparently (but this is windows standard I guess!)
*/
timeoutTiming = 500;
//-----
button.on('dblclick', function () {
isDblclick = true;
clearTimeout(dblclickTimeout);
dblclickTimeout = setTimeout(function () {
isDblclick = false;
}, timeoutTiming);
//-----
// here goes your dblclick codes
console.log('double clicked! not click.');
}).on('click', function () {
clearTimeout(clickTimeout);
clickTimeout = setTimeout(function () {
if(!isDblclick) {
// here goes your click codes
console.log('a simple click.');
}
}, timeoutTiming);
});<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<button type="button" id="button">
click/dblclick on this to see the result
</button>0
votes
I know this is old as heck, but thought I'd post anyhow since I just ran into the same problem. Here's how I resolved it.
$('#alerts-display, #object-display').on('click', ['.item-data-summary', '.item-marker'], function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var id;
id = setTimeout(() => {
// code to run here
return false;
}, 150);
timeoutIDForDoubleClick.push(id);
});
$('.panel-items-set-marker-view').on('dblclick', ['.summary', '.marker'], function(e) {
for (let i = 0; i < timeoutIDForDoubleClick.length; i++) {
clearTimeout(timeoutIDForDoubleClick[i]);
}
// code to run on double click
e.preventDefault();
});
0
votes
Here is my simple solution to prevent the second click. Of course, I could restart the timeout when a double click detected, but in reality I never need it.
clickTimeoutId = null;
onClick(e) {
if (clickTimeoutId !== null) {
// Double click, do nothing
return;
}
// Single click
// TODO smth
clickTimeoutId = setTimeout(() => {
clearTimeout(clickTimeoutId);
clickTimeoutId = null;
}, 300);
}
0
votes
Summarizing, to recognize the simpleClick and doubleClick events on the same element, just treat the onClick event with this method:
var EVENT_DOUBLE_CLICK_DELAY = 220; // Adjust max delay btw two clicks (ms)
var eventClickPending = 0;
function onClick(e){
if ((e.detail == 2 ) && (eventClickPending!= 0)) {
// console.log('double click action here ' + e.detail);
clearTimeout(eventClickPending);
eventClickPending = 0;
// call your double click method
fncEventDblclick(e);
} else if ((e.detail === 1 ) && (eventClickPending== 0)){
// console.log('sigle click action here 1');
eventClickPending= setTimeout(function() {
// console.log('Executing sigle click');
eventClickPending = 0
// call your single click method
fncEventClick(e);
}, EVENT_DOUBLE_CLICK_DELAY);
// } else { // do nothing
// console.log('more than two clicks action here ' + e.detail);
}
}
0
votes
You can use debounce to free the single click handler from detecting the double/multiple clicks
Test at: https://jsfiddle.net/L3sajybp/
HTML
<div id='toDetect'>
Click or double-click me
</div>
<hr/>
<ol id='info'>
</ol>
JS
function debounce(func, wait, immediate) {
let timeout;
return function () {
const context = this,
args = arguments;
const later = function () {
timeout = null;
if (!immediate) func.apply(context, args);
};
const callNow = immediate && !timeout;
clearTimeout(timeout);
timeout = setTimeout(later, wait);
if (callNow) func.apply(context, args);
};
}
function debounceSingleClickOnly(func, timeout = 500) {
function eventHandler (event) {
const { detail } = event;
if (detail > 1) {
console.log('no double click for you '+ func.name);
console.log('');
return;
}
func.apply(this, arguments);
}
return debounce(eventHandler, timeout);
}
window.toDetect.addEventListener('click', debounceSingleClickOnly(handleSingleClick));
window.toDetect.addEventListener('dblclick', handleDoubleClick);
function handleS() {
console.log('S func');
console.log(this.id);
}
function handleSingleClick(event) {
console.log('single click');
const divText = document.createElement('li');
divText.appendChild(document.createTextNode('single click'));
window.info.appendChild(divText)
console.group();
console.log('this element was single-clicked: ' + event.target.id);
console.log(this.id);
console.log('');
console.groupEnd();
}
function handleDoubleClick(event) {
console.log('double click');
const divText = document.createElement('li');
divText.appendChild(document.createTextNode('double click'));
window.info.appendChild(divText);
console.group();
console.log('this element was double-clicked: ' + event.target.id);
console.log(this.id);
console.log('');
console.groupEnd();
}
Output: 
