Question

You probably have noticed this behavior on thefreedictionary.com : on double-clicking a word, the page reloads showing the meaning of the double-clicked word.

For example, the meaning of the word ‘webpage’ on thefreedictionary is,

web·page or Web page

         A document on the World Wide Web,
consisting of an HTML file and
         any related files for scripts and
graphics, and often hyperlinked to
         other documents on the Web.

So if you double-click on a word, say document, then the page reloads and the reloaded page shows the meaning of document.

The interesting thing which attracted my attention is that the words on which I double-click are not even hyperlink. They look as normal as these words you’re reading right now.

So my question is : How does it work? How does double-click (with no hyperlink) work on a webpage?

Answer 1

With jQuery, it’s as simple as doing this.

<span id="test">testig testing</span>

$('#test').dblclick(function(){
alert('whatever')
})

Check working example at http://jsfiddle.net/vkpgY/