IE and Firefox compatible javascript to enable or disable an anchor tag

January 19, 2006 · 1 min read

IE supports provides a half-baked implementation of the non-standard attribute 'disabled' on anchor tags (ie it changes it's color -even though it does not actually disable the anchor (if it has an href value).  Firefox does not provide any support for it. 

To add full 'disable' functionality to both browsers there are a couple of work arounds (hacks):

  • Override the onclick event of the anchor (to do nothing) and override the visual settings.

or, more simply

  • Add or remove the href attribute (both browsers will enable/disable the anchor with this method).

    This causes both browsers to remove hyperlink behaviour: remove the underline, remove the hover mouse pointer (hand) and don't color the text blue.  It does not, however cause the anchor to be greyed out (which you can easily do if you wish).

    To allow this to work you need to store the existing href value - I just add another (non standard html) attribute eg href_bak.

    Eg:

function disableAnchor(obj, disable){
  if(disable){
    var href = obj.getAttribute("href");
    if(href && href != "" && href != null){
       obj.setAttribute('href_bak', href);
    }
    obj.removeAttribute('href');
    obj.style.color="gray";
  }
  else{
    obj.setAttribute('href', obj.attributes['href_bak'].nodeValue);
    obj.style.color="blue";
  }
}

HTH

Tim

PS - I've just (9 May 06) updated the JS above - god knows what I was thinking with the original post :-s  Thanks Heath K for the wake up call!

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Tim Huffam

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