Handling "onclick" event with pure JavaScript

Question

So this is really straight forward but I'm still fairly new to JavaScript and just found JSFiddle. I'm trying to find the element with the getElementById() to disable and enable a button. What am I missing?

<form name="frm" > 
  <div id="chkObj"> 
    <input type="checkbox" name="setChkBx" onclick="basicList.modifyAndEnableButton(this)"></input>        
</div>
<div id="Hello"> 
    <input type="button" name="btn" value="Hello"></input>        
</div>

This is a list that I am using to add checkboxes because there is going to be more than one:

 var basicList = {
    'items': {},
    'modifyAndEnableButton': function(obj1) {
        var element = document.getElementsByName("btn");
        if (obj1.checked == true && element.getAttribute('disabled') == false) {
            element.getAttribute('disabled') = true;
            this.addRecord(obj2);
        } else if (element.getAttribute('disabled') == true) {
            if (hasItems == false) {
                element.getAttribute('disabled') = false;
            }
        } 
    }
};

http://jsfiddle.net/Arandolph0/E9zvc/3/

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

All browsers support this (see example here):

mySelectedElement.onclick = function(e){
    //your handler here
}

However, sometimes you want to add a handler (and not change the same one), and more generally when available you should use addEventListener (needs shim for IE8-)

mySelectedElement.addEventListener("click",function(e){
   //your handler here
},false);

Here is a working example:

var button = document.getElementById("myButton");
button.addEventListener("click",function(e){
    button.disabled = "true";
},false);

And html:

<button id='myButton'>Hello</button>

(fiddle)

Here are some useful resources:

• addEventListener on mdn
• The click event in the DOM specification
• Click example in the MDN JavaScript tutorial