CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmleventsdom
Ian Boyd
Ian Boyd

Reputation: 256591

Documentation of html dom Event object?

Can anyone point me to the documentation of the html Event object?

Bonus Reading

The only reason i know a global Event object exists is because it was mentioned in a Stackoverflow answer:

onclick="SomeEvent(this, event)"

function SomeEvent( el, event ) {
    var target = event.srcElement || event.target;

    if( el === target ) {
        // run your code
    }
}

Where it seems to have the properties:

Googling around i found W3 School's page on the HTML DOM Event object, which lists the following properties:

and methods:

It's missing srcElement, so it's safe to say it's not complete documentation.

Then there's Microsoft's page on the event object. It doesn't have any documentation; only mentioning the object. But it does mention that:

some properties might not have meaningful values during some events. For example, the fromElement and toElement properties

W3Schools page doesn't mention fromElement or toElement properties; so it's not complete.

The MSDN page references a link to W3C:

Standards information

Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML Specification, Section 1.6.5

A search of that page contains no mention of fromElement or toElement.

So can anyone point me to documentation of the html Event object?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 816

Answers (2)

Lekensteyn
Lekensteyn

Reputation: 66395

The MDN site provides very reliable information: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/event. Your event.toElement property is a non-standard Microsoft thing, a quick test showed undefined for the property in Firefox:

<body onclick="alert(event.srcElement)">Click

The correct property to use is target. Also note that event is not global, it is only a local variable. You are suggested to use addEventListener for adding DOM events as described in the MDN page.

quirksmode.org has nice tables on compatibility across browsers.

W3schools... well http://w3fools.com

Since you want to know more about the IE-specific srcElement property, consult Microsofts documention. From srcElement property:

Gets the element that the event was originally dispatched to. Compare to target.

Remarks

Note The srcElement property is provided for backward compatibility. Use the target property instead.

Upvotes: 1

srijan
srijan

Reputation: 1512

Javascript itself is only a concept. Its a blend of different dialects like Jscript & Gecko Javascript. Now different browsers treat Javascript differently, so there are plethora of different documentation floating around in the internet.

Now talking about the events:

  • IE has two events models
  • Mozilla and Safari two different ones
  • Opera has three

And then compatibility:

  • the IE DOM0 events model works differently than the DOM0 events model of every other browser
  • the IE proprietary attachEvent events model (also supported by Opera) is different from the W3C DOM2 events model
  • Mozilla, Safari and Opera support W3C DOM2 events
  • the Event object has a very different set of properties in IE as compared to the other three, independent of which event model you're talking about.

In fact, independent of which events model you're talking about, you will find differences between all four major browsers in various aspects. Thats why you are not finding a specific global documentation of event object.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions