Understanding the window.event property and its usage

Question

I don't understand the motivation behind window.event or window.event.srcElement. In what context should one use this? What exactly does it represent in the DOM?

Answer 1

Not sure if this difference has been changed in newer browser versions but basically, "In the Microsoft event accessing model there is a special property window.event that contains the last event that took place." (from reference)

So, to write an event handler compatible across browsers you'd need to do something like this:

function doSomething(e) {
    if(!e) {
        var e = window.event;
    }
    var ele = e.target || e.srcElement;
    // get the clicked element
    // srcElement for IE, target for others
}
element.onclick = doSomething;

Reference: http://www.quirksmode.org/js/events_access.html