Question

I am writing some javascript (jQuery) that enables a div wrapped around a checkbox, when clicked, will toggle the checkbox element. However, the problem I’m running into is that when you click on the checkbox, it doesn’t work because it’s being toggled twice (at least I think that’s what’s happening).

Here’s a demo.

Here’s the code:

$('.checkbox-wrapper').click(function(){
    var $checkbox = $(this).find('input[type="checkbox"]');
    if ($checkbox.is(':checked')) {
        $checkbox.attr('checked', false);
    } else {
        $checkbox.attr('checked', true);
    }
});

How can I make it so that clicking the checkbox works as normal, but if you click in the surrounding area, it toggles the checkbox?

Solution:

Thanks to jAndy’s comment for showing how this can be done by checking the event.target property:

$('.checkbox-wrapper').click(function(e){
    if( e.target.nodeName === 'INPUT' ) {
        e.stopPropagation();
        return;
    }
    
    var $checkbox = $(this).find('input[type="checkbox"]');
    if ($checkbox.is(':checked')) {
        $checkbox.attr('checked', false);
    } else {
        $checkbox.attr('checked', true);
    }
});

And as others have pointed out, this may not be the best example since you get the same functionality (without needing javascript) by wrapping the checkbox with a label tag instead of a div tag. Demo

Answer 1

Check the event.target property.

The target property can be the element that registered for the event or a descendant of it. It is often useful to compare event.target to this in order to determine if the event is being handled due to event bubbling.