Question

Here is an interesting jsfiddle.

In Firefox:

1. Run the fiddle
2. Click in text input
3. Click somewhere else. Should say “1 blurs”.
4. Click in the text input again.
5. ALT–TAB to another window. Fiddle should now say “2 blurs”.

In Chrome, at step 5, it says “3 blurs”. Two separate “blur” events are fired when the whole browser loses focus. This is of interest because it means that it’s not safe to assume, in a “blur” handler, that the element actually had focus just before the event was dispatched; that is, that the loss of focus — the transition from “being in focus” to “not being in focus” — is the reason for the event. When two “blur” events are generated, that condition is not satisfied during the handling of the second event, as the element is already not in focus.

So is this just a bug? Is there a way to tell that a “blur” event is bogus?

Answer 1

The reason it is firing twice is because of window.onblur. The window blurring triggers a blur event on all elements in that window as part of the way javascript’s capturing/bubbling process. All you need to do is test the event target for being the window.

var blurCount = 0;
var isTargetWindow = false;
$(window).blur(function(e){
    console.log(e.target);
    isTargetWindow = true;
});
$(window).focus(function(){
    isTargetWindow = false;
});
$('input').blur(function(e) {
    if(!isTargetWindow){         
       $('div').text(++blurCount + ' blurs');
    }
    console.log(e.target);
});

​
http://jsfiddle.net/pDYsM/4/