Question

I want all the clicks on links to execute a certain action with the exception of mailto links. I have the following code that works as expected. It first attaches the function to all the links and then removes it from the mailto links:

<a href="http://www.example.com">example.com</a>
<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">Someone</a>

<script type="text/javascript">
    $('a').on('click', function () {
        theAction();
    });
    $('a[href^="mailto"]').off('click');
</script>

I would like the same functionality but using the :not() selector as it looks more elegant. How would it be?

Answer 1

Rather than attaching the event to each and every link, delegate it. This also makes it pretty easy to filter which do and don’t fire it.

$('body').on('click', 'a:not([href^=mailto])', function(evt) {...