Mar 7, 2011

Stopping link onclick from causing the browser to jump around

Often we may use links to enact Javascript functions in this fashion:

<a href=”#” onclick=”dosomething();”>click me</a>

While this works, the browser thinks you clicked on an anchor link and may "jump" the browser view port to the top left corner of the content.

A common way to work around this is to have the method dosomething(); return false. By doing so the browser should short-circuit the event model and not enact the href call. I say should because everyone's favorite browser - IE6 - does not. IE6 does not pass the event to the function, calling false does not stop the event propagation.

This can work:

<a href=”javascript:;” onclick=”dosomething();”>click me</a>

But it may cause problems. This call propagates an event call specific to IE and can break certain functionality.

A safer way is the following:

<a href=”#” onclick=”dosomething(); event.returnValue=false; return false;”>click me</a>

This works perfectly. The event will not propagate and the href action will not occur.

I wish I could give credit to the individual who pointed this out to me, but I can't find the link any more.

Props to Web Developers Journal for providing me with the original concept.

Feb 12, 2011

Friends of Eclipse

I just became a "Friend of Eclipse". I've been using the IDE regularly for both work and home projects and I figured it was about time I made a donation. I encourage everyone to help out by donating what they can to their favorite open source projects.