jQuery's `on` doesn't see children elements

Question

I want to have an event listener on my main div ( .main ). I want to detect clicks on article 's children header . My code attempts are as follow:

var area = $('article.small-post').children('.inner').children('header');

var area = $('article.small-post > .inner > header');

var area = 'article.small-post > .inner > header';

$('.main').on('click', area, function() {
     alert('bam');
});

None of the area code works. Only when I put single article.small-post , code fires. Where's my mistake?

HTML:

<div class="main">
<article class="small-post">
    <div class="inner">
        <header>
            title
        </header>
        <div class="entry">
            entry
        </div>
        <footer class="footer"></footer>
    </div>
</article>
</div>

Answer 1

First, only area3 will work because .on second parameter accept a string.

Then, you have an extra bracket :

$('.main').on('click', area#, function() {alert('bam');}});
                                                        ^-here

Remove it and it work

$('.main').on('click', area3, function() {alert('bam');});

http://jsfiddle.net/ondd6nw7/

Answer 2

Maybe this helps you. Of course you can put $main directly inline.

var $main = $(".main");

$main.on("click", "header", function() {
    alert("header clicked");
});

See my fiddle

Answer 3

You can try this:

$('.main article header').on('click', function() {
    // some code...
});

or try this:

$('.main article').on('click', 'header', function() {
    // some code...
});

You can find the difference explained here .

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Why don't you do it like this?

$('.main article header').click(function(){
  alert('bam');
});

This was the alert will be triggered on all header elements that are in an article tag inside the main class.

Answer 5

You want to use Event Delegation to have all child clicks detected from one parent element.

An example would look like this:

$('.my-parent-class').on('click','.my-inner-element',doSomething);

More info here: http://api.jquery.com/on/

Answer 6

If I got you right, this might solve your problem.

See the JSfiddle link: http://jsfiddle.net/90xn59ot/3/

JS code:

// Little modifications
var area = $('article').children('div.inner').children('header'),
area2 = $('article > .inner > header'),
area3 = 'article > .inner > header';

// Basically with the single element
// If you have more than one element
// -> simply loop over them...
// 
// @example
// 
// for(var i = 0; i < area.length; i++) {
//    $('div.main').on('click', area[i].tagName, function () {
//         #code goes here...
//    } 
// }

$('div.main').on('click', area[0].tagName, function () {
   alert('Activate me only');
   area[0].style.backgroundColor = getRandomColor();
   area[0].style.color = getRandomColor();
});

// This one is just for fun...
function getRandomColor() {
   var letters = '0123456789ABCDEF'.split('');
   var color = '#';
   for (var i = 0; i < 6; i++ ) {
   color += letters[Math.floor(Math.random() * 16)];
}
   return color;
}

Answer 7

Try this:

$(function(){
    var $main = $('.main');

    $main.on('click', function(e){
        var $target = $(e.target),
            $header = $('header');

        if($target.is($header)){
            //do something
        }
    });
});

By clicking on .main , you're sending a click event argument to the function which catches the click target . If that target is before declared $main , do something.