auxclick

This is an experimental technology
Because this technology's specification has not stabilized, check the compatibility table for usage in various browsers. Also note that the syntax and behavior of an experimental technology is subject to change in future versions of browsers as the specification changes.

The auxclick event is fired when a non-primary pointing device button (e.g. any non-left mouse button) has been pressed and released on an element.

Property attributes of auxclick
Bubbles Yes
Cancelable Yes
Target objects Any element
Interface MouseEvent

Example

In this example we define two event handler functions — onclick and onauxclick. The former changes the color of the button background, while the latter changes the button foreground (text) color. You can see the two functions in action by trying the demo out with a multi-button mouse (see it live on GitHub; also see the source code).

var button = document.querySelector('button');
var html = document.querySelector('html');
function random(number) {
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * number);
}
button.onclick = function() {
  var rndCol = 'rgb(' + random(255) + ',' + random(255) + ',' + random(255) + ')';
  button.style.backgroundColor = rndCol;
};
button.onauxclick = function() {
  var rndCol = 'rgb(' + random(255) + ',' + random(255) + ',' + random(255) + ')';
  button.style.color = rndCol;
}

Note: If you are using a three-button mouse, you'll notice that the onauxclick handler is run when either of the non-left mouse buttons are clicked.

Preventing default actions

For the vast majority of browsers that map middle click to opening a link in a new tab, including Firefox, it is possible to cancel this behaviour by calling preventDefault from within an auxclick event handler.

When listening for auxclick events originating on elements that do not support input or navigation, you will often want to explicitly prevent other default actions mapped to the down action of the middle mouse button. On Windows this is usually autoscroll, and on Mac OS and Linux this is usually clipboard paste. This can be done by preventing the default behaviour of the mousedown or pointerdown event.

Additionally, you may need to avoid opening a system context menu after a right click. Due to timing differences between operating systems, this too is not a preventable default behaviour of auxclick. Instead this can be done by preventing the default behaviour of the contextmenu event.

Inheritance

The auxclick event object implements the MouseEvent interface, which in turn implements the Event interface — it has available the properties and methods defined on both these interfaces.

Specification

Specification Status Comment
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events Specification
The definition of 'auxclick' in that specification.
Obsolete Initial definition

Browser Compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari (WebKit)
Basic support 55 53 (53) No support ? No support
Feature Android Android Webview Chrome for Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support No support ? 55 53 (53) ? No support No support

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: myakura, lpd-au, sprt, bunnybooboo, RByers, chrisdavidmills
 Last updated by: myakura,