Event Propagation

Event propagation is a term describing the life cycle of an event, which includes three stages: capturing, targeting and bubbling. In practice, only the bubbling phase is often used.

When an event occurs, it goes through three mandatory phases:

• Capturing phase: the event starts from window and goes down (goes through all ancestor elements) to the deepest target element on which an action occurred, for example a click.
• Target phase (targeting): the event has reached the target element. This stage only includes notification of the element that an action has taken place on it.
• Bubbling phase is the final phase: the event bubbles from the deepest, target element, through all ancestor elements to window.

Note

Propagation is often misused as a synonym for the bubbling stage. Every time an event occurs, it propagates.