The listening element

Let’s say we added an event listener to a button. When the button is clicked, we want to change the button’s color to blue.

Here’s what you would have written given what you know so far:

const button = document.querySelector('button')
button.addEventListener('click', e => {
  button.style.color = 'blue'
})

Here, button is the element that listens to the click event. Let’s call button the listening element.

What happens if you decide to create a callback separately? Would the code still work?

function changeButtonColorToBlue(e) {
  button.style.color = 'blue'
}

const button = document.querySelector('button')
button.addEventListener('click', changeButtonColorToBlue)

The answer is yes.

The answer is yes because button is defined before changeButtonColorToBlue is used.

However, if (for some bloody weird reason) you decide to name button as something else, the code would break.

// This wouldn't work, because `button` is not defined
function changeButtonColorToBlue(e) {
  button.style.color = 'blue'
}

const someButton = document.querySelector('button')
someButton.addEventListener('click', changeButtonColorToBlue)

We don’t want to write code that breaks when we change the name of a variable. We want it to be robust. The question is, how do you get the listening element in the event listener, without using the button variable?

There are two ways:

1. The this keyword
2. Event.currentTarget

The this keyword

this is a JavaScript keyword. It changes depending on how a function is called; it refers to the listening element if you use a normal function as the callback of an event listener.

const button = document.querySelector('button')
button.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
  console.log(this)
})

Note: this doesn’t work if you use an arrow function!

const button = document.querySelector('button')
button.addEventListener('click', e => {
  console.log(this)
})

Event.currentTarget

All event listener callbacks accepts an argument. This argument is the event object. People usually abbreviate it either to evt or e.

I’m sure you’ve seen it a couple of times by now :)

button.addEventListener('click', event => {
  /* ... */
})

This event object gives you information about the triggered event. Here’s what you’ll see if you log the event object into the console.

button.addEventListener('click', event => {
  console.log(event)
})

You can get the listening element through the currentTarget property.

const button = document.querySelector('button')
button.addEventListener('click', event => {
  console.log(event.currentTarget)
})

Circling back

To make changeButtonColorToBlue regardless of the variable used to store the button, you can use either this or currentTarget to get the listening element.

// This works now
function changeButtonColorToBlue(e) {
  e.currentTarget.style.color = 'blue'
}

const someButton = document.querySelector('button')
someButton.addEventListener('click', changeButtonColorToBlue)

this or event.currentTarget?

They both work. Choose either method.

this only works if you use normal functions (not arrow functions) while currentTarget works regardless of what type of functions you use.

I default to writing arrow functions nowadays, so I almost always go for currentTarget.

Exercise

1. Get the listening element with this.
2. Get the listening element with Event.currentTarget.