PointerEvent

The PointerEvent interface represents the state of a DOM event produced by a pointer such as the geometry of the contact point, the device type that generated the event, the amount of pressure that was applied on the contact surface, etc.

A pointer is a hardware agnostic representation of input devices (such as a mouse, pen or contact point on a touch-enable surface). The pointer can target a specific coordinate (or set of coordinates) on the contact surface such as a screen.

A pointer's hit test is the process a browser uses to determine the target element for a pointer event. Typically, this is determined by considering the pointer's location and also the visual layout of elements in a document on screen media.

Constructors

PointerEvent()

Creates a synthetic and untrusted PointerEvent.

Properties

This interface inherits properties from MouseEvent and Event.

PointerEvent.pointerId Read only

A unique identifier for the pointer causing the event.

PointerEvent.width Read only

The width (magnitude on the X axis), in CSS pixels, of the contact geometry of the pointer.

PointerEvent.height Read only

The height (magnitude on the Y axis), in CSS pixels, of the contact geometry of the pointer.

PointerEvent.pressure Read only

The normalized pressure of the pointer input in the range 0 to 1, where 0 and 1 represent the minimum and maximum pressure the hardware is capable of detecting, respectively.

PointerEvent.tangentialPressure Read only

The normalized tangential pressure of the pointer input (also known as barrel pressure or cylinder stress) in the range -1 to 1, where 0 is the neutral position of the control.

PointerEvent.tiltX Read only

The plane angle (in degrees, in the range of -90 to 90) between the Y-Z plane and the plane containing both the transducer (e.g. pen stylus) axis and the Y axis.

PointerEvent.tiltY Read only

The plane angle (in degrees, in the range of -90 to 90) between the X-Z plane and the plane containing both the transducer (e.g. pen stylus) axis and the X axis.

PointerEvent.twist Read only

The clockwise rotation of the transducer (e.g. pen stylus) around its major axis in degrees, with a value in the range 0 to 359.

PointerEvent.pointerType Read only

Indicates the device type that caused the event (mouse, pen, touch, etc.)

PointerEvent.isPrimary Read only

Indicates if the pointer represents the primary pointer of this pointer type.

Methods

PointerEvent.getCoalescedEvents()

Returns a sequence of all PointerEvent instances that were coalesced into the dispatched pointermove event.

Pointer event types

The PointerEvent interface has several event types. To determine which event fired, look at the event's type property.

pointerover

This event is fired when a pointing device is moved into an element's hit test boundaries.

pointerenter

This event is fired when when a pointing device is moved into the hit test boundaries of an element or one of its descendants, including as a result of a pointerdown event from a device that does not support hover (see pointerdown). This event type is similar to pointerover, but differs in that it does not bubble.

pointerdown

The event is fired when a pointer becomes active. For mouse, it is fired when the device transitions from no buttons depressed to at least one button depressed. For touch, it is fired when physical contact is made with the digitizer. For pen, it is fired when the stylus makes physical contact with the digitizer.

pointermove

This event is fired when a pointer changes coordinates.

pointerup

This event is fired when a pointer is no longer active.

pointercancel

A browser fires this event if it concludes the pointer will no longer be able to generate events (for example the related device is deactived).

pointerout

This event is fired for several reasons including: pointing device is moved out of the hit test boundaries of an element; firing the pointerup event for a device that does not support hover (see pointerup); after firing the pointercancel event (see pointercancel); when a pen stylus leaves the hover range detectable by the digitizer.

pointerleave

This event is fired when a pointing device is moved out of the hit test boundaries of an element. For pen devices, this event is fired when the stylus leaves the hover range detectable by the digitizer.

gotpointercapture

This event is fired when an element receives pointer capture.

lostpointercapture

This event is fired after pointer capture is released for a pointer.

GlobalEventHandlers

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointerover

A global event handler for the pointerover event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointerenter

A global event handler for the pointerenter event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointerdown

A global event handler for the pointerdown event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointermove

A global event handler for the pointermove event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointerup

A global event handler for the pointerup event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointercancel

A global event handler for the pointercancel event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointerout

A global event handler for the pointerout event.

GlobalEventHandlers.onpointerleave

A global event handler for the pointerleave event.

Example

An Example of each property, event type and global event handler is included in their respective reference page.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

[1] This feature is currently hidden behind a flag; to enable it and experiment, set the dom.w3c_pointer_events.enabled preference to true in about:config.

[2] Starting in Firefox 29, touch-action is implemented in Firefox, but is hidden behind the layout.css.touch_action.enabled preference. Starting in Firefox Nighly 50, it is enabled by default when running in nightly builds only; no decision has been made on when it will make its way along toward release. You still need to separately enable the dom.w3c_pointer_events.enabled preference, however.

[3] tangentialPressure and twist were implemented in Firefox 54.

See also

• Touch Events
• GestureEvent
• MSGestureEvent
• touch-action