Question

I am learning jQuery and am looking to clarify what e.preventDefault() does. From what I have read it prevents the default behaviour of the event.

An example in my case would be that I have an anchor tag which rather than take me to a new page I want it to display a modal on my screen. So my jQuery looks like this

$(document).ready(function() {
$('#boxShow').click(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    $("#light").fadeIn();
    $('#fade').fadeIn();
});

Is the preventDefault() enabling me to perform a different event?

Apologies if this is a stupid question

Answer 1

It’s easy, it prevents the default event from happening. For example an <a> element normally opens a link on click. In order to override that you will need to use this function.

This is easier to read once you use event instead of the acronym e.

$('a').click(function(event){
    event.preventDefault();
});