Only detect click event on pseudo-element

Question

My code is:

p {
    position: relative;
    background-color: blue;
}

p:before {
    content: \'\';
    position: absolute;
    left:100%;
    width: 10px;
         


        

Answer 1

Add condition in Click event to restrict the clickable area .

    $('#thing').click(function(e) {
       if (e.clientX > $(this).offset().left + 90 &&
             e.clientY < $(this).offset().top + 10) {
                 // action when clicking on after-element
                 // your code here
       }
     });

DEMO

Answer 2

No,but you can do like this

In html file add this section

<div class="arrow">
</div>

In css you can do like this

p div.arrow {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    left:100%;
    width: 10px;
    height: 100%;
    background-color: red;
} 

Hope it will help you

Answer 3

On modern browsers you can try with the pointer-events css property (but it leads to the impossibility to detect mouse events on the parent node):

p {
    position: relative;
    background-color: blue;
    color:#ffffff;
    padding:0px 10px;
    pointer-events:none;
}
p::before {
    content: attr(data-before);
    margin-left:-10px;
    margin-right:10px;
    position: relative;
    background-color: red;
    padding:0px 10px;
    pointer-events:auto;
}

When the event target is your "p" element, you know it is your "p:before".

If you still need to detect mouse events on the main p, you may consider the possibility to modify your HTML structure. You can add a span tag and the following style:

p span {
    background:#393;
    padding:0px 10px;
    pointer-events:auto;
}

The event targets are now both the "span" and the "p:before" elements.

Example without jquery: http://jsfiddle.net/2nsptvcu/

Example with jquery: http://jsfiddle.net/0vygmnnb/

Here is the list of browsers supporting pointer-events: http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer-events

Answer 4

This is edited answer by Fasoeu with latest CSS3 and JS ES6

Edited demo without using JQuery.

Shortest example of code:

<p><span>Some text</span></p>

p {
    position: relative;
    pointer-events: none;
}
p::before {
    content: "";
    position: absolute;
    pointer-events: auto;
}
p span {
    display: contents;
    pointer-events: auto;
}

const all_p = Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('p'));

for (let p of all_p) {
    p.addEventListener("click", listener, false);
};

Explanation:

pointer-events control detection of events, removing receiving events from target, but keep receiving from pseudo-elements make possible to click on ::before and ::after and you will always know what you are clicking on pseudo-element, however if you still need to click, you put all content in nested element (span in example), but because we don't want to apply any additional styles, display: contents; become very handy solution and it supported by most browsers. pointer-events: none; as already mentioned in original post also widely supported.

The JavaScript part also used widely supported Array.from and for...of, however they are not necessary to use in code.