Get the type of element that is focused

Question

I am building a page with various anchors and form-elements that can be focused and I am wondering how I can get the element that is being focused on currently if something is being focused. I think one way to do it in jQuery is with .is(:focus). I'm looking for either a jQuery or vanilla js solution— just something that works.

Here is what I am trying to do in psuedo-code:

if (something is focused){
    get the tag name of that which is currently focused and store that in a variable as a string.
}
else {
    alert("nothing is being focused on");
}

Also, if you could answer this question, please do: Isn't something always focused? Meaning it is the document / body that is focused when no specific elements are or is nothing focused until done so by the code or user?

@ultranaut Thank you for pointing that out. That question had the answer I am looking for. — IMUXIxD, Mar 20 '13 at 16:25

Rain · Answer 1 · 2013-03-20T03:37:32.403

0

Assuming you want to do this with jQuery, you are looking for is the jQuery .prop() method. $(someElement).prop('tagName') will return the tag name of someElement.

Just threw this together, as an example: http://jsfiddle.net/kZbYv/1/

edited Mar 20 '13 at 03:37

answered Mar 20 '13 at 03:30

Rain

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 20 '13 at 03:39

0

You could use the following:

$('*:focus')

answered Mar 20 '13 at 03:39

pdoherty926

9,895
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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 20 '13 at 03:39

You can either set a list of elements you care about focus on, or use a wildcard selector:

$(function () {
    var focusedEls = [];
    $('*:visible').bind('focus', function (e) {
        focusedEls.push(e.target);
        console.log( $.unique(focusedEls) );
    });
});

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/xfwy2/

There are a number of ways to store the elements that were focused, I just chose an array. Also, I'm not sure if you want to keep track of the times each element was focused, but if you do, just ditch the $.unique() for the full list.

Get the type of element that is focused

3 Answers3