Sunday, May 20, 2012

How can I create an empty HTML anchor so the page doesn"t "jump up' when I click it?


I'm working on some JQuery to hide/show some content when I click a link. I can create something like:




<a href="#" onclick="jquery_stuff" />



But if I click that link while I'm scrolled down on a page, it will jump back up to the top of the page.



If I do something like:




<a href="" onclick="jquery_stuff" />



The page will reload, which rids the page of all the changes that javascript has made.



Something like this:




<a onclick="jquery_stuff" />



Will give me the desired effect, but it no longer shows up as a link. Is there some way to specify an empty anchor so I can assign a javascript handler to the onlick event, without changing anything on the page or moving the scrollbar?


Source: Tips4all

10 comments:

  1. Put a "return false;" on the second option:

    <a href="" onclick="jquery_stuff; return false;" />

    ReplyDelete
  2. You need to return false; after the jquery_stuff:

    <a href="no-javascript.html" onclick="jquery_stuff(); return false;" />


    This will cancel the default action.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You can put simply as like below:

    <a href="javascript:;" onclick="jquery_stuff">

    ReplyDelete
  4. <a href="javascript:;" onclick="jquery">link</a>


    href requires something in there if you want it to not pop up errors in validators for html. The javascript:; is a good place holder.

    If you really want to use the #:

    <a href="#me" name="me" onclick="jquery">link</a>


    Be careful with the return false;, it halts default behaviours of whatever you are doing.

    Also if your js is like a submit you may run into problems in internet explorer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. <a href="javascript:// some helpful comment " onclick="jquery_stuff" />

    ReplyDelete
  6. I usually use a <span> and style it to look like a link when I need to accomplish something like this.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Usually I do:

    <a style="cursor:pointer;" onclick="whatever();">Whatever</a>

    ReplyDelete
  8. How about this:

    <a href="#nogo" onclick="foo();">some text</a>

    ReplyDelete
  9. jQuery has a function built in for this called preventDefault which can be found here:
    http://api.jquery.com/event.preventDefault/

    Here's their example:

    <script>
    $("a").click(function(event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    });
    </script>

    ReplyDelete
  10. Check eyelidlessness' comment. Was just about to post the same advice. An anchor that doesn't link to a resource and merely executes a script should be implemented as a button.

    ReplyDelete