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

Like for instance Bootstrap 4 Alpha has this Menu Event. Why not use?

// PREVENT INSIDE MEGA DROPDOWN
$('.dropdown-menu').on("click.bs.dropdown", function (e) {
    e.stopPropagation();
    e.preventDefault();                
});

Answer 2

$('body').on("click", ".dropdown-menu", function (e) {
    $(this).parent().is(".show") && e.stopPropagation();
});

this works in 2018

Answer 3

I've found none of the solutions worked as I would like using default bootstrap nav. Here is my solution to this problem:

       $(document).on('hide.bs.dropdown', function (e) {
        if ($(e.currentTarget.activeElement).hasClass('dropdown-toggle')) {
          $(e.relatedTarget).parent().removeClass('open');
          return true;
        }
        return false;
       });

Answer 4

I know there already is a previous answer suggesting to use a form but the markup provided is not correct/ideal. Here's the easiest solution, no javascript needed at all and it doesn't break your dropdown. Works with Bootstrap 4.

<form class="dropdown-item"> <!-- Your elements go here --> </form>

Answer 5

Bootstrap has solved this problem themselves in their support for <form> tags in dropdowns. Their solution is quite graspable and you can read it here: https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/v4-dev/js/src/dropdown.js

It boils down to preventing propagation at the document element and doing so only for events of type 'click.bs.dropdown.data-api' that match the selector '.dropdown .your-custom-class-for-keep-open-on-click-elements'.

Or in code

$(document).on('click.bs.dropdown.data-api', '.dropdown .keep-open-on-click', (event) => {
    event.stopPropagation();
});

Answer 6

• demo: http://jsfiddle.net/4y8tLgcp/

$('ul.nav.navbar-nav').on('click.bs.dropdown', function(e){
    var $a  = $(e.target), is_a = $a.is('.is_a');
    if($a.hasClass('dropdown-toggle')){   
        $('ul.dropdown-menu', this).toggle(!is_a);
        $a.toggleClass('is_a', !is_a);
    }
}).on('mouseleave', function(){
    $('ul.dropdown-menu',this).hide();
    $('.is_a', this).removeClass('is_a');
});

i have updated it once again to be the smartest and functional as possible. it now close when you hover outside the nav, remaining open while you are inside it. simply perfect.