peterchamberlin
asked on
IE7 a href + onclick - both happen!
I have an annoying behaviour in IE7. With an HTML page containing the following script...
<p>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/" onclick="window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup'); return false">Click me</a>
</p>
...if I click the link then I get a popup window, but the launching page also navigates to the href location behind it. Seemingly the href happens before the onclick event, or the onclick return value is not taken into consideration properly.
What's strange is that on other XP PCs here with IE7 it works okay, but on my work machine and home machine it doesn't. My suspicion is that VS 2005 has had some impact. I'm on VS2005 SP1 here, and original version at home.
I have reset all of IE7's settings to try to get around this problem but to no avail. I have also uninstalled the IE7 Beta3 developer toolbar. Even running in no-addon mode has no effect. Both machines are fully-patched XP SP2. I have also installed IE7 atop itself, installed M$ Script 5.6, copied registry settings from HKLM/HKCU Internet Explorer and Internet Settings from another correctly behaving XP SP2 / IE7 machine. I've tried logging on as local machine admin for a clean HKCU, nothing has fixed this.
I found some people claiming this same issue on newsgroups, others trying similar example code and getting the correct result, but no explanation in either case as to what was wrong.
This issue only affects IE7, not IE6 or Mozilla Firefox.
Thoughts, suggestions or solutions all welcome!
<p>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/" onclick="window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup'); return false">Click me</a>
</p>
...if I click the link then I get a popup window, but the launching page also navigates to the href location behind it. Seemingly the href happens before the onclick event, or the onclick return value is not taken into consideration properly.
What's strange is that on other XP PCs here with IE7 it works okay, but on my work machine and home machine it doesn't. My suspicion is that VS 2005 has had some impact. I'm on VS2005 SP1 here, and original version at home.
I have reset all of IE7's settings to try to get around this problem but to no avail. I have also uninstalled the IE7 Beta3 developer toolbar. Even running in no-addon mode has no effect. Both machines are fully-patched XP SP2. I have also installed IE7 atop itself, installed M$ Script 5.6, copied registry settings from HKLM/HKCU Internet Explorer and Internet Settings from another correctly behaving XP SP2 / IE7 machine. I've tried logging on as local machine admin for a clean HKCU, nothing has fixed this.
I found some people claiming this same issue on newsgroups, others trying similar example code and getting the correct result, but no explanation in either case as to what was wrong.
This issue only affects IE7, not IE6 or Mozilla Firefox.
Thoughts, suggestions or solutions all welcome!
Last Comment
Michel Plungjan
Very strange. The return false on the onClick should stop the navigation unless you have an error in the code before it. Are you sure that the above code as pasted will give you this situation or is it simplified for this question?
Try this:
<p>
<a href="#" onclick="window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup'); return false">Click me</a>
</p>
<p>
<a href="#" onclick="window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup'); return false">Click me</a>
</p>
if above didn't work this should work:
<script>
function openWin(){
var win1 = window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup');
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<a href="javaScript:{openWin(
</p>
<script>
function openWin(){
var win1 = window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup');
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<a href="javaScript:{openWin(
</p>
Raj: The first suggestion will reload the page and the second will unload anything running in the page too...
At least use void:
<a href="javaScript:void(open
At least use void:
<a href="javaScript:void(open
Thanks Mike.
Wrote in hurry.
Wrote in hurry.
ASKER
I'm not looking for alternatives here, I want a reason and solution as to why IE7 isn't behaving as it should, and only on my home and work PC.
The change of href to # will of course only open the popup window and the launch page navigates to #, so seems not to have changed but the request was still made.
I created the simplified sample for test purposes, but the original problem was noted with the BBC website where media player and pictures open in popup windows while opening in the launch page too. Both of them exhibit the same behaviour.
The change of href to # will of course only open the popup window and the launch page navigates to #, so seems not to have changed but the request was still made.
I created the simplified sample for test purposes, but the original problem was noted with the BBC website where media player and pictures open in popup windows while opening in the launch page too. Both of them exhibit the same behaviour.
Code you presented would behave like you mentioned based on the connection, content loading etc. You are telling your link to go to a different page and then you are telling it to load similar contents in a popup and then when popup loads then you are returning false to not to load the contents in same window. It would work fine if the order of the operation goes as you are predicting. But order is messing up due to content loading in popup, meanwhile your link is already loaded.
Remember onclick event is firing two things in your code at the same time but probably not in the same order and even if the order is how it looks then content loading is probably messing up the return code.
You can do this by using js function where you can order your events.
I hope it helps.
Remember onclick event is firing two things in your code at the same time but probably not in the same order and even if the order is how it looks then content loading is probably messing up the return code.
You can do this by using js function where you can order your events.
I hope it helps.
ASKER
In IE6, and Firefox, the onclick event gets priority over the A HREF click. By returning false it indicates that the standard click behaviour should be cancelled. Both these browsers have consistently worked correctly with this. In IE7 it's permanently in the wrong order, not time specific. Please note that I don't have access to the content causing this issue, since links like this are used all over the place on sites such as news.bbc.co.uk etc. I'm trying to resolve the browser behaviour peculiar to my home and office machines. Installing IE7 on to an XP SP2 image responds to that script as you'd expect, i.e. only opening the pop-up window.
I imagine this has to be a security restriction somewhere (I have popup blocker disabled for these tests by the way), or an event model issue with IE / security patches / JScript implementation.
I imagine this has to be a security restriction somewhere (I have popup blocker disabled for these tests by the way), or an event model issue with IE / security patches / JScript implementation.
ASKER
I noticed that if I set event.returnValue = false in the script then IE7 works correctly. It seems to be a breakage between "return false" and IE setting that value itself. Thus:
<html>
<body>
<p>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/" onclick="window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup'); event.returnValue = false; return false">Click me</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>
<html>
<body>
<p>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/" onclick="window.open('http://news.bbc.co.uk/', 'popup'); event.returnValue = false; return false">Click me</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>
Thanks for sharing
ASKER
Hoorah! I have found the solution to this niggling problem!
It was all down to having upgraded FlashGet to one of the newer versions.
Even though I was running IE in no-addon mode the FlashGet browser hooks were still interacting with IE causing the JavaScript return value of false to be lost.
Uninstalling FlashGet and rebooting cured this issue.
I will contact the author of FlashGet to alert him to this problem.
It was all down to having upgraded FlashGet to one of the newer versions.
Even though I was running IE in no-addon mode the FlashGet browser hooks were still interacting with IE causing the JavaScript return value of false to be lost.
Uninstalling FlashGet and rebooting cured this issue.
I will contact the author of FlashGet to alert him to this problem.
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JavaScript
JavaScript is a dynamic, object-based language commonly used for client-side scripting in web browsers. Recently, server side JavaScript frameworks have also emerged. JavaScript runs on nearly every operating system and in almost every mainstream web browser.
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