Getting jQuery to recognise .change() in IE

Viewed 93955

I'm using jQuery to hide and show elements when a radio button group is altered/clicked. It works fine in browsers like Firefox, but in IE 6 and 7, the action only occurs when the user then clicks somewhere else on the page.

To elaborate, when you load the page, everything looks fine. In Firefox, if you click a radio button, one table row is hidden and the other one is shown immediately. However, in IE 6 and 7, you click the radio button and nothing will happen until you click somewhere on the page. Only then does IE redraw the page, hiding and showing the relevant elements.

Here's the jQuery I'm using:

$(document).ready(function () {
  $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();

  $("#viewByOrg").change(function () {
    $(".visibleOnLoad").show();
    $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
  });

  $("#viewByProduct").change(function () {
    $(".visibleOnLoad").hide();
    $(".hiddenOnLoad").show();
  });
});

Here's the part of the XHTML that it affects. The whole page validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict.

<tr>
  <td>View by:</td>
  <td>
    <p>
      <input type="radio" name="viewBy" id="viewByOrg" value="organisation"
      checked="checked" />Organisation</p>
    <p>
      <input type="radio" name="viewBy" id="viewByProduct" value="product" />Product</p>
  </td>
</tr>
<tr class="visibleOnLoad">
  <td>Organisation:</td>
  <td>
    <select name="organisation" id="organisation" multiple="multiple" size="10">
      <option value="1">Option 1</option>
      <option value="2">Option 2</option>
    </select>
  </td>
</tr>
<tr class="hiddenOnLoad">
  <td>Product:</td>
  <td>
    <select name="product" id="product" multiple="multiple" size="10">
      <option value="1">Option 1</option>
      <option value="2">Option 2</option>
    </select>
  </td>
</tr>

If anyone has any ideas why this is happening and how to fix it, they would be very much appreciated!

20 Answers

The problem with using the click event instead of change is you get the event if the same radio box is selected (i.e. hasn't actually changed). This can be filtered out if you check that the new value is different than the old. I find this a little annoying.

If you use the change event, you may notice that it will recognize the change after you click on any other element in IE. If you call blur() in the click event, it'll cause the change event to fire (only if the radio boxes actually have a changed).

Here's how I'm doing it:

// This is the hack for IE
if ($.browser.msie) {
  $("#viewByOrg").click(function() {
    this.blur();
    this.focus();
  });
}

$("#viewByOrg").change(function() {
  // Do stuff here
});

Now you can use the change event like normal.

Edit: Added a call to focus() to prevent accessibility issues (see Bobby's comment below).

This should work too:

$(document).ready(function(){
   $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
   $("#viewByOrg, #viewByProduct").bind(($.browser.msie ? "click" : "change"), function () {
                        $(".visibleOnLoad").show();
                        $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
                    });
});

Thanks Pier. This was very helpful.

In IE you must use the click event, in other browsers onchange. Your function could become

$(document).ready(function(){
   $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
   var evt = $.browser.msie ? "click" : "change";
   $("#viewByOrg").bind(evt, function () {
                        $(".visibleOnLoad").show();
                        $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
                    });

   $("#viewByProduct").bind(evt, function () {
                        $(".visibleOnLoad").hide();
                        $(".hiddenOnLoad").show();
                    });     
});

I had the same issue with input text.

I changed:

$("#myinput").change(function() { "alert('I changed')" });

to

$("#myinput").attr("onChange", "alert('I changed')");

and everything is working fine for me!

I'm pretty sure this is a known issue with IE. Adding a handler for the onclick event should fix the problem:

$(document).ready(function(){

    $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();

    $("#viewByOrg").change(function () {
        $(".visibleOnLoad").show();
        $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
    });

    $("#viewByOrg").click(function () {
        $(".visibleOnLoad").show();
        $(".hiddenOnLoad").hide();
    });

    $("#viewByProduct").change(function () {
        $(".visibleOnLoad").hide();
        $(".hiddenOnLoad").show();
    });     

    $("#viewByProduct").click(function () {
        $(".visibleOnLoad").hide();
        $(".hiddenOnLoad").show();
    });     
});

imo using click instead of change makes the ie behaviour be different. I'd rather emulate the change event behaviour using a timer (setTimout).

something like (warning - notepad code):

if ($.browser.msie) {
  var interval = 50;
  var changeHack = 'change-hac';
  var select = $("#viewByOrg");
  select.data(changeHack) = select.val();
  var checkVal=function() {
    var oldVal = select.data(changeHack);
    var newVal = select.val();
    if (oldVal !== newVal) {
      select.data(changeHack, newVal);
      select.trigger('change')
    }
    setTimeout(changeHack, interval);
  }
  setTimeout(changeHack, interval);
}

$("#viewByOrg").change(function() {
  // Do stuff here
});

This may help someone: Instead of starting with the form's id, target the select id and submit the form on change, like this:

<form id='filterIt' action='' method='post'>
  <select id='val' name='val'>
    <option value='1'>One</option>
    <option value='2'>Two</option>
    <option value='6'>Six</option>
  </select>
  <input type="submit" value="go" />
</form>

and the jQuery:

$('#val').change(function(){
  $('#filterIt').submit();
});

(Obviously, the submit button is optional, in case javascript is disabled)

Related