Question

I have a piece of code that will sometimes need to be triggered by a script, but I don’t want it to change the URL on my page. (it messes up the history state for some odd reason)

The code I need to trigger:

 $(".photos-bottom .albums #albums li").live("click", function() {
  // my action here
 });

 The code I use to trigger it:
 $(".photos-bottom .albums #albums li:first").trigger("click");     

The link to click, however I just noticed, it’s suppose to click the li and the li is inside of the href so i don’t know why it’s still clicking it..

<a href="#/photos/1/album/42/" rel="address:/photos/1/album/42/">
<li id="42">

Answer 1

try triggerHandler() instead: http://api.jquery.com/triggerHandler/

The .triggerHandler() method behaves similarly to .trigger(), with the following exceptions:
The .triggerHandler() method does not cause the default behavior of an event to occur (such as a form submission)… [omissis]

Otherwise use trigger() with an extraparameter in the call (see http://api.jquery.com/trigger/) and in your handler just check the arguments passed. If a parameter was passed then you will prevent the default link action with. <evt>.preventDefault()

(note: I assume you handler is attached to links element, not to the list item, since you cannot wrap a list item into a link)