Only detect click event on pseudo-element

Solution 1:

This is not possible; pseudo-elements are not part of the DOM at all so you can't bind any events directly to them, you can only bind to their parent elements.

If you must have a click handler on the red region only, you have to make a child element, like a span, place it right after the opening <p> tag, apply styles to p span instead of p:before, and bind to it.

Solution 2:

Actually, it is possible. You can check if the clicked position was outside of the element, since this will only happen if ::before or ::after was clicked.

This example only checks the element to the right but that should work in your case.

span = document.querySelector('span');

span.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
    if (e.offsetX > span.offsetWidth) {
        span.className = 'c2';
    } else {
        span.className = 'c1';
    }
});

div { margin: 20px; }
span:after { content: 'AFTER'; position: absolute; }

span.c1 { background: yellow; }
span.c2:after { background: yellow; }

<div><span>ELEMENT</span></div>

JSFiddle

Solution 3:

On modern browsers you can try with the pointer-events css property (but it leads to the impossibility to detect mouse events on the parent node):

p {
    position: relative;
    background-color: blue;
    color:#ffffff;
    padding:0px 10px;
    pointer-events:none;
}
p::before {
    content: attr(data-before);
    margin-left:-10px;
    margin-right:10px;
    position: relative;
    background-color: red;
    padding:0px 10px;
    pointer-events:auto;
}

When the event target is your "p" element, you know it is your "p:before".

If you still need to detect mouse events on the main p, you may consider the possibility to modify your HTML structure. You can add a span tag and the following style:

p span {
    background:#393;
    padding:0px 10px;
    pointer-events:auto;
}

The event targets are now both the "span" and the "p:before" elements.

Example without jquery: http://jsfiddle.net/2nsptvcu/

Example with jquery: http://jsfiddle.net/0vygmnnb/

Here is the list of browsers supporting pointer-events: http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer-events

Solution 4:

Short Answer:

I did it. I wrote a function for dynamic usage for all the little people out there...

Working example which displays on the page

Working example logging to the console

Long Answer:

...Still did it.

It took me awhile to do it, since a psuedo element is not really on the page. While some of the answers above work in SOME scenarios, they ALL fail to be both dynamic and work in a scenario in which an element is both unexpected in size and position(such as absolute positioned elements overlaying a portion of the parent element). Mine does not.

Usage:

//some element selector and a click event...plain js works here too
$("div").click(function() {
    //returns an object {before: true/false, after: true/false}
    psuedoClick(this);

    //returns true/false
    psuedoClick(this).before;

    //returns true/false
    psuedoClick(this).after;

});

How it works:

It grabs the height, width, top, and left positions(based on the position away from the edge of the window) of the parent element and grabs the height, width, top, and left positions(based on the edge of the parent container) and compares those values to determine where the psuedo element is on the screen.

It then compares where the mouse is. As long as the mouse is in the newly created variable range then it returns true.

Note:

It is wise to make the parent element RELATIVE positioned. If you have an absolute positioned psuedo element, this function will only work if it is positioned based on the parent's dimensions(so the parent has to be relative...maybe sticky or fixed would work too....I dont know).

Code:

function psuedoClick(parentElem) {

    var beforeClicked,
      afterClicked;

  var parentLeft = parseInt(parentElem.getBoundingClientRect().left, 10),
      parentTop = parseInt(parentElem.getBoundingClientRect().top, 10);

  var parentWidth = parseInt(window.getComputedStyle(parentElem).width, 10),
      parentHeight = parseInt(window.getComputedStyle(parentElem).height, 10);

  var before = window.getComputedStyle(parentElem, ':before');

  var beforeStart = parentLeft + (parseInt(before.getPropertyValue("left"), 10)),
      beforeEnd = beforeStart + parseInt(before.width, 10);

  var beforeYStart = parentTop + (parseInt(before.getPropertyValue("top"), 10)),
      beforeYEnd = beforeYStart + parseInt(before.height, 10);

  var after = window.getComputedStyle(parentElem, ':after');

  var afterStart = parentLeft + (parseInt(after.getPropertyValue("left"), 10)),
      afterEnd = afterStart + parseInt(after.width, 10);

  var afterYStart = parentTop + (parseInt(after.getPropertyValue("top"), 10)),
      afterYEnd = afterYStart + parseInt(after.height, 10);

  var mouseX = event.clientX,
      mouseY = event.clientY;

  beforeClicked = (mouseX >= beforeStart && mouseX <= beforeEnd && mouseY >= beforeYStart && mouseY <= beforeYEnd ? true : false);

  afterClicked = (mouseX >= afterStart && mouseX <= afterEnd && mouseY >= afterYStart && mouseY <= afterYEnd ? true : false);

  return {
    "before" : beforeClicked,
    "after"  : afterClicked

  };      

}

Support:

I dont know....it looks like ie is dumb and likes to return auto as a computed value sometimes. IT SEEMS TO WORK WELL IN ALL BROWSERS IF DIMENSIONS ARE SET IN CSS. So...set your height and width on your psuedo elements and only move them with top and left. I recommend using it on things that you are okay with it not working on. Like an animation or something. Chrome works...as usual.