HTML5 contextmenu - Access originally clicked element when menu item is clicked

Question

I'm experimenting with the HTML5 contextmenu item in the latest version of Firefox (only browser that currently supports it). When I click on a menu item from the context menu how can I access the original element that was clicked when the menu was spawned?

The use case would be displaying a list of items and you want the user to perform an action on a particular item. Once the action is clicked from the menu you need a way to determine what element in the list was originally clicked on to spawn the menu.

Here is a JSFiddle (use Firefox to test)

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 27 '12 at 01:47

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Just save it somewhere like this.cte = arguments[0]; then retrieve it later document.getElementById('testitem').cte

http://jsfiddle.net/GALmp/4/

answered Aug 27 '12 at 01:47

Musa

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yeah that approach is the one I have working now but I was hoping for a better solution. – berg Aug 27 '12 at 04:43

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

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I was in the same or very similar situation. I have a context menu bound to a <tr> in the header of a table. When the user clicks a certain item in the contextmenu, inside the click event handler I needed to determine which <th> element the mouse pointer was over when a <menuitem> element was clicked.

Solution: document.activeElement refers to exactly the element I need. Thanks to:

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Community

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answered Nov 09 '12 at 00:22

cdaddr

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Thanks for this answer. It correctly answers the question asked, and help to solve a problem of mine. – Manngo Jul 30 '16 at 06:11

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 04 '14 at 20:58

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You can use the jquery contextMenu plug-in, which is browser independent. In particular, the following example: http://medialize.github.io/jQuery-contextMenu/demo/on-dom-element.html shows how to identify the triggering DOM element.

answered May 04 '14 at 20:58

Leo

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No you can’t. This is not the HTML5 Context Menu at all. Among other things it bypasses the existing context menu, so you lose the original items. – Manngo Jul 30 '16 at 06:05

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 27 '12 at 01:47

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The this keyword works as in any event.

answered Aug 27 '12 at 01:47

Paul S.

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And it is completely useless as it points to the `` and not the item with the `contextmenu` attribute that opened it. – ThiefMaster Nov 26 '17 at 09:28

HTML5 contextmenu - Access originally clicked element when menu item is clicked

4 Answers4