How to trigger event in JavaScript?

Question

I have attached an event to a text box using addEventListener. It works fine. My problem arose when I wanted to trigger the event programmatically from another

Answer 1

HTML

<a href="demoLink" id="myLink"> myLink </a>
<button onclick="fireLink(event)"> Call My Link </button>

JS

// click event listener of the link element --------------  
document.getElementById('myLink').addEventListener("click", callLink);
function callLink(e) {
    // code to fire
}

// function invoked by the button element ----------------
function fireLink(event) {                   
    document.getElementById('myLink').click();      // script calls the "click" event of the link element 
}

Answer 2

If you are supporting IE9+ the you can use the following. The same concept is incorporated in You Might Not Need jQuery.

function addEventListener(el, eventName, handler) {
  if (el.addEventListener) {
    el.addEventListener(eventName, handler);
  } else {
    el.attachEvent('on' + eventName, function() {
      handler.call(el);
    });
  }
}

function triggerEvent(el, eventName, options) {
  var event;
  if (window.CustomEvent) {
    event = new CustomEvent(eventName, options);
  } else {
    event = document.createEvent('CustomEvent');
    event.initCustomEvent(eventName, true, true, options);
  }
  el.dispatchEvent(event);
}

// Add an event listener.
addEventListener(document, 'customChangeEvent', function(e) {
  document.body.innerHTML = e.detail;
});

// Trigger the event.
triggerEvent(document, 'customChangeEvent', {
  detail: 'Display on trigger...'
});

---

If you are already using jQuery, here is the jQuery version of the code above.

$(function() {
  // Add an event listener.
  $(document).on('customChangeEvent', function(e, opts) {
    $('body').html(opts.detail);
  });

  // Trigger the event.
  $(document).trigger('customChangeEvent', {
    detail: 'Display on trigger...'
  });
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Answer 3

var btn = document.getElementById('btn-test');
var event = new Event(null);

event.initEvent('beforeinstallprompt', true, true);
btn.addEventListener('beforeinstallprompt', null, false);
btn.dispatchEvent(event);

this will imediattely trigger an event 'beforeinstallprompt'

Answer 4

I searched for firing click, mousedown and mouseup event on mouseover using JavaScript. I found an answer provided by Juan Mendes. For the answer click here.

Click here is the live demo and below is the code:

function fireEvent(node, eventName) {
    // Make sure we use the ownerDocument from the provided node to avoid cross-window problems
    var doc;
    if (node.ownerDocument) {
        doc = node.ownerDocument;
    } else if (node.nodeType == 9) {
        // the node may be the document itself, nodeType 9 = DOCUMENT_NODE
        doc = node;
    } else {
        throw new Error("Invalid node passed to fireEvent: " + node.id);
    }

    if (node.dispatchEvent) {
        // Gecko-style approach (now the standard) takes more work
        var eventClass = "";

        // Different events have different event classes.
        // If this switch statement can't map an eventName to an eventClass,
        // the event firing is going to fail.
        switch (eventName) {
        case "click": // Dispatching of 'click' appears to not work correctly in Safari. Use 'mousedown' or 'mouseup' instead.
        case "mousedown":
        case "mouseup":
            eventClass = "MouseEvents";
            break;

        case "focus":
        case "change":
        case "blur":
        case "select":
            eventClass = "HTMLEvents";
            break;

        default:
            throw "fireEvent: Couldn't find an event class for event '" + eventName + "'.";
            break;
        }
        var event = doc.createEvent(eventClass);

        var bubbles = eventName == "change" ? false : true;
        event.initEvent(eventName, bubbles, true); // All events created as bubbling and cancelable.

        event.synthetic = true; // allow detection of synthetic events
        // The second parameter says go ahead with the default action
        node.dispatchEvent(event, true);
    } else if (node.fireEvent) {
        // IE-old school style
        var event = doc.createEventObject();
        event.synthetic = true; // allow detection of synthetic events
        node.fireEvent("on" + eventName, event);
    }
};

Answer 5

You could use this function i compiled together.

if (!Element.prototype.trigger)
  {
    Element.prototype.trigger = function(event)
    {
        var ev;

        try
        {
            if (this.dispatchEvent && CustomEvent)
            {
                ev = new CustomEvent(event, {detail : event + ' fired!'});
                this.dispatchEvent(ev);
            }
            else
            {
                throw "CustomEvent Not supported";
            }
        }
        catch(e)
        {
            if (document.createEvent)
            {
                ev = document.createEvent('HTMLEvents');
                ev.initEvent(event, true, true);

                this.dispatchEvent(event);
            }
            else
            {
                ev = document.createEventObject();
                ev.eventType = event;
                this.fireEvent('on'+event.eventType, event);
            }
        }
    }
  }

Trigger an event below:

var dest = document.querySelector('#mapbox-directions-destination-input');
dest.trigger('focus');

Watch Event:

dest.addEventListener('focus', function(e){
   console.log(e);
});

Hope this helps!

Answer 6

function fireMouseEvent(obj, evtName) {
    if (obj.dispatchEvent) {
        //var event = new Event(evtName);
        var event = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
        event.initMouseEvent(evtName, true, true, window,
                0, 0, 0, 0, 0, false, false, false, false, 0, null);
        obj.dispatchEvent(event);
    } else if (obj.fireEvent) {
        event = document.createEventObject();
        event.button = 1;
        obj.fireEvent("on" + evtName, event);
        obj.fireEvent(evtName);
    } else {
        obj[evtName]();
    }
}

var obj = document.getElementById("......");
fireMouseEvent(obj, "click");