Outside Events

Outside events are YUI 3 synthetic DOM events that fire when a corresponding DOM event occurs outside a bound element.

Outside events for many common native DOM events are pre-defined and ready to use, and new outside events are a cinch to define. New outside events are named <event>outside by default, but may be given any name.

Outside event handlers receive the originating DOM event as an argument.

Examples

The examples directory contains a few working examples, but the basics are broken down here.

Subscribing to Outside Events

Subscribe to outside events as you would any other DOM event.

Y.one('#dialog').on('clickoutside', function (e) {
    this.addClass('hidden');
});

Delegation of outside events is supported beginning with YUI 3.2.0.

Y.one("#foo").delegate('clickoutside', function (e) { ... }, '#bar');

Using delegation, the outside event will only fire when triggered by nodes matching the given CSS selector.

Defining Outside Events

Outside events can be defined for any native or synthetic DOM events.

Native DOM Events

One native DOM event that doesn't have a pre-defined outside event is reset. If resetoutside is needed, defining it is easy:

Y.Event.defineOutside('reset');

Synthetic DOM Events

First define a synthetic DOM event:

Y.Event.define('foo', function ({
    detach: function () { ... },
    on: function () { ... }
});

Then define a corresponding outside event:

Y.Event.defineOutside('foo');

Outside events can have custom names:

Y.Event.defineOutside('foo', 'customfoo');

How It Works

When an outside event subscription is made, the document subscribes to the corresponding DOM event and waits for it to bubble. When the DOM event reaches the document, the event target is compared to the outside event subscriber. If the originating target is outside the subscriber, the outside event will fire.

An originating target is considered outside the subscriber if it is not the subscriber itself, or any of the subscriber's ancestors.

Pre-defined Outside Events

The following outside events are pre-defined and ready to use:

bluroutside       keydownoutside     mouseoutoutside
changeoutside     keypressoutside    mouseoveroutside
clickoutside      keyupoutside       mouseupoutside
dblclickoutside   mousedownoutside   selectoutside
focusoutside      mousemoveoutside   submitoutside

Caveats

Outside events require DOM events to bubble up to the document, so there are a few things to watch out for:

1. DOM event handlers on originating targets will run before the event reaches the document.

   See examples/dialog.html for a working example.

2. If stopPropagation is called on a DOM event before it reaches the document, any corresponding outside events will not fire.

   See examples/dialog.html for a working example.

3. DOM structure plays a key role in determining an element's outsideness. Pay close attention to this when using outside events.

   See examples/ancestors.html for a working example.

4. Some DOM events by definition do not (or should not) bubble, like mousewheel and scroll. Outside events will never fire for DOM events that do not bubble.

Known Issues

IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8 all incorrectly fail to bubble the change, reset, select and submit DOM events, which prevents the corresponding outside events from working.

Contributors

• Eric Ferraiuolo eferraiuolo@gmail.com

Acknowledgements

Outside Events was inspired by the YUI 3 clickoutside example, and Ben Alman's jQuery Outside Events.

License

Copyright (c) 2010 Brett Stimmerman brettstimmerman@gmail.com All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
• Neither the name of this project nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.