Avoid dropdown menu close on click inside

Question

I have a Twitter Bootstrap dropdown menu. As all Twitter Bootstrap users know, the dropdown menu closes on click (even clicking inside it).

To avoid this, I can easily attach a click event handler on the dropdown menu and simply add the famous event.stopPropagation().

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
  <li class="dropdown mega-dropdown">
    <a href="javascript:;" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">
      <i class="fa fa-list-alt"></i> Menu item 1
      <span class="fa fa-chevron-down pull-right"></span>
    </a>
    <ul class="dropdown-menu mega-dropdown-menu">
      <li>
        <div id="carousel" class="carousel slide" data-ride="carousel">
          <ol class="carousel-indicators">
            <li data-slide-to="0" data-target="#carousel"></li>
            <li class="active" data-slide-to="1" data-target="#carousel"></li>
          </ol>
          <div class="carousel-inner">
            <div class="item">
              <img alt="" class="img-rounded" src="img1.jpg">
            </div>
            <div class="item active">
              <img alt="" class="img-rounded" src="img2.jpg">
            </div>
          </div>
          <a data-slide="prev" role="button" href="#carousel" 
             class="left carousel-control">
            <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-left"></span>
          </a>
          <a data-slide="next" role="button" href="#carousel" 
             class="right carousel-control">
            <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-right"></span>
          </a>
        </div>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

This looks easy and a very common behavior, however, and since carousel-controls (as well as carousel indicators) event handlers are delegated to the document object, the click event on these elements (prev/next controls, ...) will be “ignored”.

$('ul.dropdown-menu.mega-dropdown-menu').on('click', function(event){
    // The event won't be propagated up to the document NODE and 
    // therefore delegated events won't be fired
    event.stopPropagation();
});

Relying on Twitter Bootstrap dropdown hide/hidden events is not a solution for the following reasons:

• The provided event for both event handlers doesn’t give you reference to the clicked element
• The dropdown menu content is dynamically generated so adding a flag class is not possible

This fiddle is the normal behavior and this fiddle is with event.stopPropagation() added.

Update

Thanks to Roman for his answer. I also found an answer that you can find below.

Answer 1

I know this question was specifically for jQuery, but for anyone using AngularJS that has this problem you can create a directive that handles this:

angular.module('app').directive('dropdownPreventClose', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
          element.on('click', function(e) {
            e.stopPropagation(); //prevent the default behavior of closing the dropdown-menu
          });
        }
    };
});

Then just add the attribute dropdown-prevent-close to your element that is triggering the menu to close, and it should prevent it. For me, it was a select element that automatically closed the menu:

<div class="dropdown-menu">
  <select dropdown-prevent-close name="myInput" id="myInput" ng-model="myModel">
    <option value="">Select Me</option>
  </select>
</div>

Answer 2

$(function() {
var closeble = false;
$('body').on('click', function (e) {
    if (!$(event.target).is("a.dropdown-toggle")) {
        closeble = false;
    }

});
$('.dropdown').on({
    "click": function(event) {
        if ($(event.target).closest('.dropdown-toggle').length) {
            closeble = true;
        } else {
            closeble = false;
        }
    },
    "hide.bs.dropdown": function() {
        return closeble;
    }
});

});

Answer 3

Removing the data attribute data-toggle="dropdown" and implementing the open/close of the dropdown can be a solution.

First by handling the click on the link to open/close the dropdown like this :

$('li.dropdown.mega-dropdown a').on('click', function (event) {
    $(this).parent().toggleClass('open');
});

and then listening the clicks outside of the dropdown to close it like this :

$('body').on('click', function (e) {
    if (!$('li.dropdown.mega-dropdown').is(e.target) 
        && $('li.dropdown.mega-dropdown').has(e.target).length === 0 
        && $('.open').has(e.target).length === 0
    ) {
        $('li.dropdown.mega-dropdown').removeClass('open');
    }
});

Here is the demo : http://jsfiddle.net/RomaLefrancois/hh81rhcm/2/

Answer 4

I also found a solution.

Assuming that the Twitter Bootstrap Components related events handlers are delegated to the document object, I loop the attached handlers and check if the current clicked element (or one of its parents) is concerned by a delegated event.

$('ul.dropdown-menu.mega-dropdown-menu').on('click', function(event){
    var events = $._data(document, 'events') || {};
    events = events.click || [];
    for(var i = 0; i < events.length; i++) {
        if(events[i].selector) {

            //Check if the clicked element matches the event selector
            if($(event.target).is(events[i].selector)) {
                events[i].handler.call(event.target, event);
            }

            // Check if any of the clicked element parents matches the 
            // delegated event selector (Emulating propagation)
            $(event.target).parents(events[i].selector).each(function(){
                events[i].handler.call(this, event);
            });
        }
    }
    event.stopPropagation(); //Always stop propagation
});

Hope it helps any one looking for a similar solution.

Thank you all for your help.

Answer 5

I've got a similar problem recently and tried different ways to solve it with removing the data attribute data-toggle="dropdown" and listening click with event.stopPropagation() calling.

The second way looks more preferable. Also Bootstrap developers use this way. In the source file I found initialization of the dropdown elements:

// APPLY TO STANDARD DROPDOWN ELEMENTS
$(document)
.on('click.bs.dropdown.data-api', clearMenus)
.on('click.bs.dropdown.data-api', '.dropdown form', function (e) { e.stopPropagation() })
.on('click.bs.dropdown.data-api', toggle, Dropdown.prototype.toggle)
.on('keydown.bs.dropdown.data-api', toggle, Dropdown.prototype.keydown)
.on('keydown.bs.dropdown.data-api', '.dropdown-menu', Dropdown.prototype.keydown)
}(jQuery);

So, this line:

.on('click.bs.dropdown.data-api', '.dropdown form', function (e) { e.stopPropagation() })

suggests you can put a form element inside the container with class .dropdown to avoid closing the dropdown menu.

Answer 6

$(function() {
    $('.mega-dropdown').on('hide.bs.dropdown', function(e) {
        var $target = $(e.target);
        return !($target.hasClass("keep-open") || $target.parents(".keep-open").size() > 0);
    });

    $('.mega-dropdown > ul.dropdown-menu').on('mouseenter', function() {
        $(this).parent('li').addClass('keep-open')
    }).on('mouseleave', function() {
        $(this).parent('li').removeClass('keep-open')
    });
});