Emulate W3C event capturing model in IE

Question

Is it possible to emulate event capturing in Internet Explorer?

An example:

<a>one</a>
<a>two</a>
<a>three3</a>

<script>
var links = document.getElementsByTagName("A");
for (var i=0; i < links.length; i++) {
  links[i].onclick = function(){
    alert("clicked");
  };
}
</script>

I want to prevent all these click events from firing. I can do that with a single event observer:

document.addEventListener("click", function(e) {
    e.stopPropagation();
    e.preventDefault();
}, true);

How can I do the same in IE? IE < 9 does not support addEventListener. It does support attachEvent, but it doesn't have useCapture option.

I've found setCapture method, but it doesn't look related to the W3 capturing model.

Answer 1

Generally you can't because of the event order. In IE the events will start bubbling from the target element without the capturing phase so you can't catch them beforehand.

There's only one thing you can do, and it's only possible if you manage all the event handlers.

1. Write a wrapper for addEvent with capture parameter

2. If capturing is required do the following

   1. Register a simple bubbling event, with a function that
   2. Goes all the way up the parent chain, saving all the elements to an Array
   3. Travels backward this Array invoking the original event handler on each of the elements