What's the best way to remove the dead zone on a button with a relative position in HTML and CSS?

Question

What's the best way to remove the dead zone on a button with a relative position in HTML and CSS?

Recently, I've come across an issue with styled <a> and <button> tags. This problem arises when using display block or inline-block, some padding, and positioning relative to adjust the position on :active.

a { display: inline-block; padding: 3px 6px; background: #aff; }
a:active { position: relative; top: 1px; left: 1px; }

The issue involves a 1 pixel invisible box around the text where clicks are not being registered by the browser or JavaScript, despite animations still occurring. This issue has been observed in browsers like Firefox and Chrome on Windows.

For a live demonstration of this problem, visit:

I have attempted solutions such as using margins instead of position: relative; and setting .active with JavaScript instead of utilizing :active.

To clarify, the deadzone I am referring to is inside the link (the blue box in my example) but outside the bounding box of the text. Check out this image highlighting the area of concern in dark blue:

html css button

Answer 1

Answer №1

To prevent accidentally clicking on an active link, simply move it away to avoid interaction. Implementing the following CSS can help resolve this issue:

a:active { 
    padding: 4px 5px 2px 7px;
}

For a live example, refer to http://jsfiddle.net/ZCkpE/5/ (credit to Kevin Gurney for the initial code).

Update:

There seems to be an issue in the browser regarding the behavior of click events. According to W3.org's definition of a click event:

The click event occurs when the pointing device button is clicked over an element. A click is defined as a mousedown and mouseup over the same screen location. The sequence of these events is:

mousedown

mouseup

click

It appears that the mouse events trigger on different parts of the link, leading to the click event not firing properly.

For more insights, check out http://jsfiddle.net/ZCkpE/8/.

Click event fires if mousedown and mouseup occur on the padding.
No click event if mousedown happens on the padding but mouseup on the text.

This discrepancy indicates that the padding and text are treated as separate elements by the click event handler.

A possible solution: create an overlaying div instead of relying heavily on hacks. It works across Chrome and Firefox, but has some limitations in IE depending on where you click within the element. For details, visit http://jsfiddle.net/ZCkpE/13/.

Answer 2

To prevent accidentally clicking on an active link, simply move it away to avoid interaction. Implementing the following CSS can help resolve this issue:

a:active { 
    padding: 4px 5px 2px 7px;
}

For a live example, refer to http://jsfiddle.net/ZCkpE/5/ (credit to Kevin Gurney for the initial code).

Update:

There seems to be an issue in the browser regarding the behavior of click events. According to W3.org's definition of a click event:

The click event occurs when the pointing device button is clicked over an element. A click is defined as a mousedown and mouseup over the same screen location. The sequence of these events is:

mousedown

mouseup

click

It appears that the mouse events trigger on different parts of the link, leading to the click event not firing properly.

For more insights, check out http://jsfiddle.net/ZCkpE/8/.

Click event fires if mousedown and mouseup occur on the padding.
No click event if mousedown happens on the padding but mouseup on the text.

This discrepancy indicates that the padding and text are treated as separate elements by the click event handler.

A possible solution: create an overlaying div instead of relying heavily on hacks. It works across Chrome and Firefox, but has some limitations in IE depending on where you click within the element. For details, visit http://jsfiddle.net/ZCkpE/13/.

Answer 3

Answer №2

This might not be the most elegant solution, but you could try the following workaround: instead of directly moving the original link element or its contents, create a duplicate link with identical text and position it in the same place. Then hide the original link. This method requires extra markup and can only be achieved using JavaScript for movement, but it is functional.

HTML:

<span class="link_container"><a href="#" class="main"><span>Click me</span></a> 
<span class="replacement"><a href="#" class="aux"><span>Click me</span></a></span></span>

CSS:

.link_container { display: inline-block; position: relative; }
a.main { display:inline-block; position: relative; z-index: 2; }
a.main span { position: relative; top: -1000px; }
.link_container span.replacement { position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; z-index: 1; }
.link_container span.replacement span { display: inline-block; background-color: #fab; }
.link_container span.replacement span.offset { position: relative; left: 5px; top: 5px; }

JavaScript function to move the text on each click:

$(document).ready(function() { 
$("a").click(function() {
    $("span.replacement span").toggleClass("offset");
    $("p").text($("p").text()+" clicked!");
    return false; 
});
});

http://jsfiddle.net/Vfc5r/36/

Compatibility tested on Chrome and IE8. Chrome responds to the .main link while IE8 reacts to the .aux link. It may not completely resolve issues in browsers that respond to the moved link, but it offers an improvement for those that interact with the static link.

Answer 4

This might not be the most elegant solution, but you could try the following workaround: instead of directly moving the original link element or its contents, create a duplicate link with identical text and position it in the same place. Then hide the original link. This method requires extra markup and can only be achieved using JavaScript for movement, but it is functional.

HTML:

<span class="link_container"><a href="#" class="main"><span>Click me</span></a> 
<span class="replacement"><a href="#" class="aux"><span>Click me</span></a></span></span>

CSS:

.link_container { display: inline-block; position: relative; }
a.main { display:inline-block; position: relative; z-index: 2; }
a.main span { position: relative; top: -1000px; }
.link_container span.replacement { position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; z-index: 1; }
.link_container span.replacement span { display: inline-block; background-color: #fab; }
.link_container span.replacement span.offset { position: relative; left: 5px; top: 5px; }

JavaScript function to move the text on each click:

$(document).ready(function() { 
$("a").click(function() {
    $("span.replacement span").toggleClass("offset");
    $("p").text($("p").text()+" clicked!");
    return false; 
});
});

http://jsfiddle.net/Vfc5r/36/

Compatibility tested on Chrome and IE8. Chrome responds to the .main link while IE8 reacts to the .aux link. It may not completely resolve issues in browsers that respond to the moved link, but it offers an improvement for those that interact with the static link.

Answer 5

Answer №3

Big thanks to @zzzzBov and @Ryan Kinal for providing me with a practical solution that involves bypassing the click event on a tags and using mouseup instead:

$("a").click(false).mouseup(function() { window.location = $(this).attr('href'); });

If you're up for a more sophisticated (and precise) approach, you could consider creating a custom click event using a jQuery plugin:

(function($) {
  $.fn.newClick = function(fn) {
    if (fn === undefined) { 
      fn = function() { window.location = $(this).attr("href"); }; 
    }
    this.click(false);
    this.mousedown(function() {
      $(this).data("clicked", true);
    });
    this.mouseup(function(e) {
      var response = true;
      if ($(this).data("clicked")) {
        response = fn.call($(this), e);
      }
      $(this).data("clicked", false);
      return response; 
    });
  };
})(jQuery);

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("a.js").newClick(function(e) {
    $("p").text($("p").text() + " clicked!");
    return false;
  });
  $("a").newClick();
});

By setting up any necessary custom events first, we can then override the default click behavior for all a tags. Check out a live demo here.

Answer 6

Big thanks to @zzzzBov and @Ryan Kinal for providing me with a practical solution that involves bypassing the click event on a tags and using mouseup instead:

$("a").click(false).mouseup(function() { window.location = $(this).attr('href'); });

If you're up for a more sophisticated (and precise) approach, you could consider creating a custom click event using a jQuery plugin:

(function($) {
  $.fn.newClick = function(fn) {
    if (fn === undefined) { 
      fn = function() { window.location = $(this).attr("href"); }; 
    }
    this.click(false);
    this.mousedown(function() {
      $(this).data("clicked", true);
    });
    this.mouseup(function(e) {
      var response = true;
      if ($(this).data("clicked")) {
        response = fn.call($(this), e);
      }
      $(this).data("clicked", false);
      return response; 
    });
  };
})(jQuery);

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("a.js").newClick(function(e) {
    $("p").text($("p").text() + " clicked!");
    return false;
  });
  $("a").newClick();
});

By setting up any necessary custom events first, we can then override the default click behavior for all a tags. Check out a live demo here.

What's the best way to remove the dead zone on a button with a relative position in HTML and CSS?

Answer №1

Answer №2

Answer №3

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