As shown in the demo, dispatchEvent is not working as expected.

/

Key part:

btn.dispatchEvent(
    document.createEvent("MouseEvent")
    .initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0,
        0, 0, 0, 0,
        false, false, false, false,
        0, null)
);

An alert should pop up after 1 second upon loaded, but it is not coming up and an error appears in the console:

Uncaught InvalidStateError: Failed to execute 'dispatchEvent' on 'EventTarget': The event provided is null.

I don't know where's the problem at since I found a demo almost with the exact same code, and it is working but not mine.

As shown in the demo, dispatchEvent is not working as expected.

http://jsfiddle.net/DerekL/V8uEN/

Key part:

btn.dispatchEvent(
    document.createEvent("MouseEvent")
    .initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0,
        0, 0, 0, 0,
        false, false, false, false,
        0, null)
);

An alert should pop up after 1 second upon loaded, but it is not coming up and an error appears in the console:

Uncaught InvalidStateError: Failed to execute 'dispatchEvent' on 'EventTarget': The event provided is null.

I don't know where's the problem at since I found a demo almost with the exact same code, and it is working but not mine.

• javascript
• dom-events

• worked for me. using chrome here. – T McKeown Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 20:19
• @TMcKeown - That's weird, I'm using Chrome 32 on Windows but it's not working. – Derek 朕會功夫 Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 20:20
• sorry, it's not popping up automatically. – T McKeown Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 20:21

2 Answers 2

btn.dispatchEvent(
    document.createEvent("MouseEvent")
    .initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0,
        0, 0, 0, 0,
        false, false, false, false,
        0, null)
);

Your problem is that initMouseEvent doesn't return anything. You can't combine all of that into one line. You need to break it up.

var mEvent = document.createEvent("MouseEvent");
mEvent.initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0,
    0, 0, 0, 0,
    false, false, false, false,
    0, null);

btn.dispatchEvent(mEvent);

This is how it's done in the demo you linked to.

This works:

var btn = document.querySelector("button");
btn.addEventListener("click", function () {
   alert("Clicked.");
});

setTimeout(function () {
  var mEvent = document.createEvent("MouseEvent");
  mEvent.initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, false, false, false, false, 0, null);

  btn.dispatchEvent(mEvent);
}, 1000);