css 'pointer-events' property alternative for IE

I have a drop down navigation menu in which some of the title should not navigate to other page when clicked(these title open a drop down menu when clicked on) while others should navigate (these dont have dropdown and navigate directly).However, both types have href defined to them

To solve this i added the following css for the former type of titles

pointer-events: none;

and it is working fine.But since this property is not supported by IE, i am looking for some work-around. The annoying thing is that i don't have access and privilege to change the HTML and JavaScript code completely.

Any ideas?

Pointer-events is a Mozilla hack and where it has been implemented in Webkit browsers, you can't expect to see it in IE browsers for another million years.

There is however a solution I found:

Forwarding Mouse Events Through Layers

This uses a plugin that uses some not well known/understood properties of Javascript to take the mouse event and send it to another element.

There is also another Javascript solution here.

Update for October 2013: apparently it's coming to IE in v11. Source. Thanks Tim.

Here is another solution that is very easy to implement with 5 lines of code:

1. Capture the 'mousedown' event for the top element (the element you want to turn off pointer events).
2. In the 'mousedown' hide the top element.
3. Use 'document.elementFromPoint()' to get the underlying element.
4. Unhide the top element.
5. Execute the desired event for the underlying element.

Example:

//This is an IE fix because pointer-events does not work in IE
$(document).on('mousedown', '.TopElement', function (e) {
    
    $(this).hide();
    var BottomElement = document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY);
    $(this).show();
    $(BottomElement).mousedown(); //Manually fire the event for desired underlying element

    return false;

});

There's a workaround for IE - use inline SVG and set pointer-events="none" in SVG. See my answer in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9385213/how-to-make-internet-explorer-emulate-pointer-eventsnone

It's worth mentioning that specifically for IE, disabled=disabled works for anchor tags:

<a href="contact.html" onclick="unleashTheDragon();" disabled="disabled">Contact</a>

IE treats this as an disabled element and does not trigger click event. However, disabled is not a valid attribute on an anchor tag. Hence this won't work in other browsers. For them pointer-events:none is required in the styling.

UPDATE 1: So adding following rule feels like a cross-browser solution to me

UPDATE 2: For further compatibility, because IE will not form styles for anchor tags with disabled='disabled', so they will still look active. Thus, a:hover{} rule and styling is a good idea:

a[disabled="disabled"] {
        pointer-events: none; /* this is enough for non-IE browsers */
		color: darkgrey;      /* IE */
    }
        /* IE - disable hover effects */   
		a[disabled="disabled"]:hover {
			cursor:default;
			color: darkgrey;
			text-decoration:none;
		}

Working on Chrome, IE11, and IE8.
Of course, above CSS assumes anchor tags are rendered with disabled="disabled"

Here's a small script implementing this feature (inspired by the Shea Frederick blog article that Kyle mentions):

• Pointer Events Polyfill.

I spent almost two days on finding the solution for this problem and I found this at last.

This uses javascript and jquery.

(GitHub) pointer_events_polyfill

This could use a javascript plug-in to be downloaded/copied. Just copy/download the codes from that site and save it as pointer_events_polyfill.js. Include that javascript to your site.

<script src="JS/pointer_events_polyfill.js></script>

Add this jquery scripts to your site

$(document).ready(function(){
    PointerEventsPolyfill.initialize({});
});

And don't forget to include your jquery plug-in.

It works! I can click elements under the transparent element. I'm using IE 10. I hope this can also work in IE 9 and below.

EDIT: Using this solution does not work when you click the textboxes below the transparent element. To solve this problem, I use focus when the user clicks on the textbox.

Javascript:

document.getElementById("theTextbox").focus();

JQuery:

$("#theTextbox").focus();

This lets you type the text into the textbox.

Cover the offending elements with an invisible block, using a pseudo element: :before or :after

a:before {
//IE No click hack by covering the element.
  display:block;
  position:absolute;
  height:100%;
  width:100%;
  content:' ';
}

Thus you're click lands on the parent element. No good, if the parent is clickable, but works well otherwise.

I've found another solution to solve this problem. I use jQuery to set the href-attribute to javascript:; (not ' ', or the browser will reload the page) if the browser window width is greater than 1'000px. You need to add an ID to your link. Here's what I'm doing:

// get current browser width
var width = $(window).width();
if (width >= 1001) {
				
	// refer link to nothing
	$("a#linkID").attr('href', 'javascript:;');	
}

Maybe it's useful for you.

Use OnClientClick = "return false;"

You can also just "not" add a url inside the <a> tag, i do this for menus that are <a> tag driven with drop downs as well. If there is not drop down then i add the url but if there are drop downs with a <ul> <li> list i just remove it.

I faced similar issues:

1. I faced this issue in a directive, i fixed it adding a

   as its parent element and making pointer-events:none for that

2. The above fix did not work for select tag, then i added cursor:text (which was what i wanted) and it worked for me

If a normal cursor is needed you could add cursor:default

Best solution:

.disabled{filter: alpha(opacity=50);opacity: 0.5;z-index: 1;pointer-events: none;}

Runs perfectly on all browsers