How do I detect a click outside an element?

Question

I have some HTML menus, which I show completely when a user clicks on the head of these menus. I would like to hide these elements when the user clicks outside the menus' area.

Is something like this possible with jQuery?

$("#menuscontainer").clickOutsideThisElement(function() {
    // Hide the menus
});

Answer 1

NOTE: Using stopEventPropagation() is something that should be avoided as it breaks normal event flow in the DOM. See this article for more information. Consider using this method instead

Attach a click event to the document body which closes the window. Attach a separate click event to the container which stops propagation to the document body.

$(window).click(function() {
//Hide the menus if visible
});

$('#menucontainer').click(function(event){
    event.stopPropagation();
});