How do I run a jQuery function when any link (a) on my site is clicked

Question

I have a new site build on corecommerce system which does not have much access to HTML and non to PHP. Only thing I can use is JavaScript. Their system is currently not great on page load speed so I wanted at least customers to know something is happening while they wait 5-8 seconds for a page to load. So I found some pieces of code and put them together to show an overlay loading GIF while page is loading. Currently it will run if you click anywhere on the page but I want it to run only when a link (a href) on the site is clicked (any link).

I know you can do a code that will run while page loading but this isn't good enough as it will execute too late (after few seconds)

Anyway, this is my website www.cosmeticsbynature.com and this is the code I use. Any help will be great.

<div id="loading"><img src="doen'tallowmetopostanimage" border=0></div>


<script type="text/javascript">
var ld=(document.all);
var ns4=document.layers;
var ns6=document.getElementById&&!document.all;
var ie4=document.all;
  if (ns4)
 ld=document.loading;
 else if (ns6)
 ld=document.getElementById("loading").style;
 else if (ie4)
 ld=document.all.loading.style;
jQuery(document).click(function()
{
if(ns4){ld.visibility="show";}
else if (ns6||ie4)
var pb = document.getElementById("loading");
pb.innerHTML = '<img src="http://www.cosmeticsbynature.com/00222-1/design/image/loading.gif" border=0>';
ld.display="block";
});
</script>

Answer 1

Doing this will be easier if you include jQuery in your pages. Once that is done, you can do:

$('a').click(function() {
 // .. your code here ..
 return true; // return true so that the browser will navigate to the clicked a's href
}

Answer 2

//to select all links on a page in jQuery
jQuery('a')

//and then to bind an event to all links present when this code runs (`.on()` is the same as `.bind()` here)
jQuery('a').on('click', function () {
    //my click code here
});

//and to bind to all links even if you add them after the DOM initially loads (`on()` is the same as `.delegate()` here; with slightly different syntax, the event and selector are switched)
jQuery(document).on('click', 'a', function () {
    //my click code here
});

Note: .on() is new in jQuery 1.7.