innerHTML of clicked element

Question

How could I get the innerHTML of a clicked element on a page of a random website, using a favelet or a script injector? By example, clicking right above the "Ask Question" of this page would return something starting with: <div class="nav mainnavs " style=""> <ul style=""> <li style="">.

I tried editing a favelet from slayeroffice.com whose initial purpose was removing children of the selected element, but it doesn't seems to work.

javascript:
var b = new Array();
var c= 1;
var d;
document.onkeydown = ck;
el = document.getElementsByTagName('*');
for (i = 0; i < el.length; i++)
    {
        if (el[i].tagName.search(/(HTML|BODY)/i) == -1) 
        {
            if (el[i].title) el[i].oldTitle = el[i].title;
            el[i].title = el[i].innerHTML;
            d=String(el[i].innerHTML);
            el[i].onclick = function(e)
            {
                t = this;
                if (window.event) e = window.event;
                if ((t == e.target) || (window.event)) alert(d);
                if (window.opera) e.stopPropagation();
                return false;
            };
            el[i].onmouseover = function() 
            {
                if (!c) return;
                c = 0;
                t = this;
                b[t] = t.style.backgroundColor;
                t.style.background = '#DADADA';
            };
            void(
            el[i].onmouseout = function()
            {
                t = this;
                t.style.backgroundColor = b[t];
                c = 1;
            });
        }

    }
function ck(e) 
{
    k = window.event ? window.event.keyCode : e.keyCode;
    if (k == 27) 
    {
        for (i = 0; i < el.length; i++) {
            if (el[i].tagName.search(/(HTML|BODY)/i) == -1) 
            {
                el[i].oldTitle ? el[i].title = el[i].oldTitle : el[i].removeAttribute('title');
                el[i].onclick = null;
                el[i].onmouseover = null;
                el[i].onmouseout = null;
                el[i].style.backgroundColor = b[t];
            }
        }
    }

}

Is there any solution?

Answer 1

You can just attach an event to the document onclick handler. No need for looping through every element on the page. Clicks will bubble up to it...

document.onclick = function(event) {
    var target = event.target || event.srcElement;

    alert ( target.innerHTML ); 
};

However I recommend using a better method for attaching the event handler than with '=' as it will override any previously defined events that may be crucial to page operation.

I have used this snippet before for better event attaching without jQuery...

var bindEvent = function(elem ,evt,cb) {
        //see if the addEventListener function exists on the element
        if ( elem.addEventListener ) {
            elem.addEventListener(evt,cb,false);
        //if addEventListener is not present, see if this is an IE browser
        } else if ( elem.attachEvent ) {
            //prefix the event type with "on"
            elem.attachEvent('on' + evt, function(){
                /* use call to simulate addEventListener
                 * This will make sure the callback gets the element for "this"
                 * and will ensure the function's first argument is the event object
                 */
                 cb.call(event.srcElement,event);
            });
        }
    }

You just call...

bindEvent(document,'click', function(event) {
    var target = event.target || event.srcElement;

    alert ( target.innerHTML ); 
});

Answer 2

You will have issues with the scope of i in a for loop.

i will be equal to el.length when the clicking happens.

But why use a variable, when you can read it

change

if ((t == e.target) || (window.event)) alert(d);

to

if ((t == e.target) || (window.event)) {  
    alert(this.innerHTML);
}

Also shouldn't you be checking for srcElement on window.event?