javascript - Programmatical click on <a>-tag not working in Firefox

Question

I have a problem with the click()-function from jquery. I create a <a>-element with document.createElement('a') and want call the click()-function about this element. About this element, I want to create an Excel-file and save this at the desktop.

My code:

$('body').on('click', '#test', function(event) {
    var link = document.createElement('a');
    link.download = 'test.xls';
    link.href = 'data:application/vnd.ms-excel;utf-8,test';
    link.click();
});

This function work under chrome, but not under Firefox.

Working example

Does anyone have any idea why that does not work?

Answer 1

In Firefox, you can explicitly add the created element to the DOM and it will work:

$('body').on('click', '#test', function(event) {
    var link = document.createElement('a');
    // Add the element to the DOM
    link.setAttribute("type", "hidden"); // make it hidden if needed
    link.download = 'test.xls';
    link.href = 'data:application/vnd.ms-excel;utf-8,test';
    document.body.appendChild(link);
    link.click();
    link.remove();
});

Fiddle