event.preventDefault() on first click then remove

Question

I have the default anchor disabled if it has a class subnav as shown in this fiddle.

I only want this disabled for the first click then I want the normal anchor function

Answer 1

this will work for you

$("#elementid").bind("click", function( event ) {
  alert("This will be displayed only once.");
  event.preventDefault(); 
  $(this).unbind( event );
});

Answer 2

You can pass false to one():

$(".subnav a").one("click", false);

Passing false instead of a handler is equivalent to passing a handler that returns false, effectively stopping the event's propagation and preventing its default behavior.

This is explained in the documentation for bind():

In jQuery 1.4.3 you can now pass in false in place of an event handler. This will bind an event handler equivalent to: function() { return false; }.

Answer 3

You could use something as simple as self unbind in the click handler.

Something like

function stopEventOnce(event) {
  event.preventDefault();
  $(this).unbind('click',stopEventOnce);
  return false;
}
$(".subnav a").bind('click', stopEventOnce);

Modified fiddle

Answer 4

Bind the event handler with one()docu. It executes once and automatically unbinds itself afterwards.

$(".subnav a").one("click", function(event) {
  event.preventDefault();
});

Alternatively you can unbind it yourself directly in the function. It's good to use a namespace for that

$(".subnav a").bind("click.myclick", function(event) {
  event.preventDefault();
  $(this).unbind(".myclick");
});

Answer 5

This works well. The second click goes to the page...

$(".smallNavigation > ul > li > a").click(function (e) {

    $("ul.sub-menu").hide();
    $("ul.sub-menu", $(this).parent("li")).show();

    e.preventDefault();
    $(this).unbind(e);

}