The onmousedown Event Doesn't Seem to be Triggering

Question

In one of my projects the onmousedown event didn't seem to be doing anything when it was meant to trigger a function in a separate JavaScript file.

I tried incorporating both onmousedown and onClick on a button in a small test file to see if it was just a problem in the project, and it didn't work either, leading me to believe that I must be doing something wrong...

Here is my test.html file:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
    <button onmousedown="click()">Click</button>
    <span id="testSpan"></span>

    <script type="text/javascript" src="main.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

And here is my main.js file:

function click() {
  document.getElementById("testSpan").innerHTML = "SUCCESS";
}

To explain, the HTML button is supposed to trigger the click() function in main.js, and then cause "SUCCESS" to appear through the span element beside the button in the webpage; which it doesn't for me.

I have tried to do the same in a pen on codepen.io where it didn't seem to work either. Even weirder is the fact that I don't have any errors showing up at all... what am I missing?

Related http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4388443/javascript-function-name-cannot-set-as-click — Steven Lambert, Jul 14 '16 at 03:02
Thanks, due to me searching for problems related to `onmousedown` I didn't see that problem/solution. — Lars Kloosterman, Jul 14 '16 at 03:08

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 14 '16 at 03:03

1

It isn't working because you named your function 'click'. I changed the name to 'press' and your code works fine!

function press() {
  document.getElementById("testSpan").innerHTML = "SUCCESS";
}

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
    <button onmousedown="press()">Click</button>
    <span id="testSpan"></span>

    <script type="text/javascript" src="main.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

answered Jul 14 '16 at 03:03

Thank you! I'll have a look at the JavaScript documentation to know these "reserved words" for future reference. – Lars Kloosterman Jul 14 '16 at 03:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 14 '16 at 03:10

Try it :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
    <button  onmousedown="window.click()">Click</button>
    <span id="testSpan"></span>

    <script>
            function click() {
      document.getElementById("testSpan").innerHTML = "SUCCESS";
    }
      </script>
  </body>
</html>

The onmousedown Event Doesn't Seem to be Triggering

2 Answers2