In my latest code, I have an event handler for a focus on a textarea. When the user clicks on the textarea, that event-handler is triggered which sets some other DOM states based on the selected textarea. However, elsewhere in my program I want to programmatically set the focus of the textarea without triggering that event handler. I know Backbone, for instance, has a way to silently perform an action.

My only pseudo-solution is to temporarily set a variable:

var silence = true;

And then, in my event handler, only perform the logic if silence is false. The handler is still triggered, but the logic doesn't run.

Does anyone else know of better strategies for this?