Question

Basically I want user to click on any .editable item, which makes an input appear, copy its styles, and then if they click anywhere else, I want the input to disappear and the changes to save. I’m having difficulty making this work. I’ve seen a solution using event.stopPropagation, but I don’t see how to include it the way I have my code structured:

$(function() {
    var editObj = 0;
    var editing = false;   

    $("html").not(editObj).click(function(){
         if (editing){
                $(editObj).removeAttr("style");
                $("#textEdit").hide();
                alert("save changes");
            }
    });    


    $(".editable").not("video, img, textarea")
        .click(function(event) {

            editObj = this;
            editing = true;

            $("#textEdit")
                .copyCSS(this)
                .offset($(this).offset())
                .css("display", "block")
                .val($(this).text())
                .select();

            $(this).css("color", "transparent");


    });
}

copyCSS function from here

I need to distinguish between clicks on the editable object, and clicks away from it, even if that click is onto a different editable object (in which case it should call 2 events).

Answer 1

Try this:

$('body').click(function(event) {
    var parents = $(event.target).parents().andSelf();
    if (parents.filter(function(i,elem) { return $(elem).is('#textEdit'); }).length == 0) {
        // click was not on #textEdit or any of its childs
    }
});

$(".editable").not("video, img, textarea")
        .click(function(event) {

    // you need to add this, else the event will propagate to the body and close
    e.preventDefault();

http://jsfiddle.net/dDFNM/1/

This works by checking if the clicked element, or any of its parents, is #textEdit.

The event.stopPropagation solution can be implemented this way:

// any click event triggered on #textEdit or any of its childs
// will not propagate to the body

$("#textEdit").click(function(event) {
    event.stopPropagation();
});

// any click event that propagates to the body will close the #textEdit

$('body').click(function(event) {
    if (editing) {
        $("#textEdit").hide();
    }
});

http://jsfiddle.net/dDFNM/2/