How to distinguish between left and right mouse click with jQuery

Question

How do you obtain the clicked mouse button using jQuery?

$('div').bind('click', function(){
    alert('clicked');
});

this is triggered by both right and left click, what is the way of being able to catch right mouse click? I'd be happy if something like below exists:

$('div').bind('rightclick', function(){ 
    alert('right mouse button is pressed');
});

Answer 1

As of jQuery version 1.1.3, event.which normalizes event.keyCode and event.charCode so you don't have to worry about browser compatibility issues. Documentation on event.which

event.which will give 1, 2 or 3 for left, middle and right mouse buttons respectively so:

$('#element').mousedown(function(event) {
    switch (event.which) {
        case 1:
            alert('Left Mouse button pressed.');
            break;
        case 2:
            alert('Middle Mouse button pressed.');
            break;
        case 3:
            alert('Right Mouse button pressed.');
            break;
        default:
            alert('You have a strange Mouse!');
    }
});