title: How do I get the fireEvent method to work in IE8?
body: <p>I'm trying to submit a form using IEs fireEvent method.  Here's some simple test code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;head&gt;
    &lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
      function fireSubmit () {
    if (document.createEventObject) {
          var event = document.createEventObject ();
      var fired = document.forms['fireForm'].fireEvent("onsubmit", event);
      alert("event fired: " + fired + "; event returnValue: " + event.returnValue);
        }
      }
    &lt;/script&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
    &lt;button onmouseover="fireSubmit();"&gt;
        Hover to submit
    &lt;/button&gt;
  
    &lt;form name="fireForm" action="action.html" method="post"&gt;
  &lt;input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"&gt;
    &lt;/form&gt;
  
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And here's the simple action.html that should get submitted:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
  &lt;script&gt;alert('submitted');&lt;/script&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I hover over the button, the event does get created and IE claims it was fired.  An alert pops up that says "event fired: true; event returnValue: <strong>undefined</strong>", but the action.html alert is never shown and the returnValue is never set contrary to what <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms536423(v=vs.85).aspx" rel="nofollow">this</a> claims.  However, if I just click on the submit button, the form is actually submitted and the "submitted" dialog shows.  </p>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong?  Am I misusing IE in some heinous way?</p>
  
  <p><em><strong>edit</em></strong>: Basically I'm trying to use the event model to catch problems down the line.  The following code using <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/element.dispatchEvent" rel="nofollow">dispatchEvent</a> works fine in non-IE browsers for the same purpose:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    if (document.createEvent) {
          var event = document.createEvent("HTMLEvents");
          event.initEvent("submit", false, false);
          var returnValue = document.forms['fireForm'].dispatchEvent(event);          
  
          alert("event returnValue: " + returnValue);
  
      }
  </code></pre>