Access event.target in IE8 unobtrusive Javascript

Question

The following function gets the target element in a dropdown menu:

function getTarget(evt){

 var targetElement = null;

 //if it is a standard browser
 if (         


        

Answer 1

In my experience, the problem you describe is not related to where the event is obtained (window or handler parameter) but rather due to whether or not the event was raised "properly". For example, if you have a text input element and you call its onchange method without passing in an event object, the event.srcElement property will be null.

The following code from Jehiah is useful

function fireEvent(element,event){
   if (document.createEventObject){
      // dispatch for IE
      var evt = document.createEventObject();
      return element.fireEvent('on'+event,evt)
   }
   else{
      // dispatch for firefox + others
      var evt = document.createEvent("HTMLEvents");
      evt.initEvent(event, true, true ); // event type,bubbling,cancelable
      return !element.dispatchEvent(evt);
   }
}

Example call:

fireEvent(element,'change');