jQuery disable a link

For others who came here via google like me - here's another approach:

css:
.disabled {
  color: grey; // ...whatever
}

jQuery:
$('#myLink').click(function (e) {
  e.preventDefault();
  if ($(this).hasClass('disabled'))
    return false; // Do something else in here if required
  else
    window.location.href = $(this).attr('href');
});

// Elsewhere in your code
if (disabledCondition == true)
  $('#myLink').addClass('disabled')
else
  $('#myLink').removeClass('disabled')

Remember: not only this is a css class

class="buttonstyle"

but also these two

class="buttonstyle disabled"

so you can easily add and remove further classes with jQuery. No need to touch href...

I love jQuery! ;-)

$('#myLink').click(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    //do other stuff when a click happens
});

That will prevent the default behaviour of a hyperlink, which is to visit the specified href.

From the jQuery tutorial:

For click and most other events, you can prevent the default behaviour - here, following the link to jquery.com - by calling event.preventDefault() in the event handler

If you want to preventDefault() only if a certain condition is fulfilled (something is hidden for instance), you could test the visibility of your ul with the class expanded. If it is visible (i.e. not hidden) the link should fire as normal, as the if statement will not be entered, and thus the default behaviour will not be prevented:

$('ul li').click(function(e) {
    if($('ul.expanded').is(':hidden')) {
        e.preventDefault();
        $('ul').addClass('expanded');
        $('ul.expanded').fadeIn(300);
    } 
});

Try this:

$("a").removeAttr('href');

EDIT-

From your updated code:

 var location= $('#link1').attr("href");
 $("#link1").removeAttr('href');
 $('ul').addClass('expanded');
 $('ul.expanded').fadeIn(300);
 $("#link1").attr("href", location);