css 'pointer-events' property alternative for IE

Question

Pointer-events is a Mozilla hack and where it has been implemented in Webkit browsers, you can't expect to see it in IE browsers for another million years.

There is however a solution I found:

Forwarding Mouse Events Through Layers

This uses a plugin that uses some not well known/understood properties of Javascript to take the mouse event and send it to another element.

There is also another Javascript solution here.

Update for October 2013: apparently it's coming to IE in v11. Source. Thanks Tim.

Here is another solution that is very easy to implement with 5 lines of code:

1. Capture the 'mousedown' event for the top element (the element you want to turn off pointer events).
2. In the 'mousedown' hide the top element.
3. Use 'document.elementFromPoint()' to get the underlying element.
4. Unhide the top element.
5. Execute the desired event for the underlying element.

Example:

//This is an IE fix because pointer-events does not work in IE
$(document).on('mousedown', '.TopElement', function (e) {

    $(this).hide();
    var BottomElement = document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY);
    $(this).show();
    $(BottomElement).mousedown(); //Manually fire the event for desired underlying element

    return false;

});

There's a workaround for IE - use inline SVG and set pointer-events="none" in SVG. See my answer in How to make Internet Explorer emulate pointer-events:none?

It's worth mentioning that specifically for IE, disabled=disabled works for anchor tags:

<a href="contact.html" onclick="unleashTheDragon();" disabled="disabled">Contact</a>

IE treats this as an disabled element and does not trigger click event. However, disabled is not a valid attribute on an anchor tag. Hence this won't work in other browsers. For them pointer-events:none is required in the styling.

UPDATE 1: So adding following rule feels like a cross-browser solution to me

UPDATE 2: For further compatibility, because IE will not form styles for anchor tags with disabled='disabled', so they will still look active. Thus, a:hover{} rule and styling is a good idea:

a[disabled="disabled"] {
        pointer-events: none; /* this is enough for non-IE browsers */
        color: darkgrey;      /* IE */
    }
        /* IE - disable hover effects */   
        a[disabled="disabled"]:hover {
            cursor:default;
            color: darkgrey;
            text-decoration:none;
        }

Working on Chrome, IE11, and IE8.
Of course, above CSS assumes anchor tags are rendered with disabled="disabled"

Here's a small script implementing this feature (inspired by the Shea Frederick blog article that Kyle mentions):

• Pointer Events Polyfill.