/jquery.event.ue

jQuery plugin to unify mouse and touch input

Primary LanguageJavaScript

jquery.event.ue

Summary

Use this unified event plugin to applications that easily and seamlessly support mobile (touch) and desktop (mouse) environments.

The plugin recognizes mouse, keyboard, and touch motions that have the same intent and publishes unified events for them. For example, a long-press intent is expressed with a mouse by pressing-and-holding on the left mouse button for over half a second without substantially moving the mouse. The same intent on a touch device is expressed by placing a finger on the screen for over half a second without substantially moving the finger. This pugin recognizes both motions as having the same intent and publishes a single uheld event for either.

Here are the full list of intents supported by this unified event plugin:

  • utap - Mouse-click (mouse) / Finger tap (touch)
  • uheld - Long-mouse-press / Finger-press-and-hold
  • udrag - Mouse-click-and-drag / Finger Swipe
  • uhelddrag - Long-mouse-press-and-drag / Finger-press-and-hold-and-drag
  • zoom - Mouse-click-and-drag-Y + shift / Finger-pinch

This plugin is used in multiple commercial SPAs and is featured in the best-selling book Single Page Web Applications - JavaScript end-to-end, also available on Amazon.

Please see the ue-test.html file for a demonstration of the different intents. Expected behavior is expressed in the BR corner of the tiles. If you see any unexpected behavior while testing motions on your device please file a bug report so we can fix it!

Browser Support

This plugin works with jQuery 1.7.0+, and has been tested on most jQuery versions through 3.0.0. It works with the latest versions of popular browsers: Chrome 15+, Firefox 23+, Safari 5+, and IE 9+. IE9 requires edge settings:

  <head><meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
  ....

Examples

    // bind to a mouse click or tap event
    $( '#utap' ) .on( 'utap',  onTap   );

    // bind to a long-press event
    $( '#uheld' ).on( 'uheld', onHeld  );

    // bind to zoom events
    $( '#uzoom' )
       .bind( 'uzoomstart', onZoomstart )
       .bind( 'uzoommove',  onZoommove  )
       .bind( 'uzoomend',   onZoomend   )
       ;

    // bind to drag events
    $( '#udrag' )
      .bind( 'udragstart', onDragstart )
      .bind( 'udragmove',  onDragmove  )
      .bind( 'udragend',   onDragend   )
      ;

    // bind to hold-drag events
    $('#uhelddrag')
      .bind('uheldstart', onDragstart )
      .bind('uheldmove',  onDragmove  )
      .bind('uheldend',   onDragend   )
      ;

Intents

See the ue-test.html file for example use of the event object.

The click intent

A click intent results in a utap event.

  • The Desktop motion is Left Mouse Button [LMB] down-up where the mouse-down time is less than the tap tolerance and the location movement is less than the drag tolerance.
  • The Touch motion is touchstart-move-end where the touch time is less than the tap tolerance and the location movement is less than the drag tolerance.

You may tweak the tap, drag, and long-press tolerances in the defaultOptMap at the top of the lib. The API will have a method to change these values in the future.

The long-press intent

A long-press intent results in a uheld event.

  • The Desktop motion is Left Mouse Button [LMB] down-up where the mouse-down time exceeds the long-press tolerance and the location movement is less than the drag tolerance.
  • The Touch motion is touchstart-move-end where the touch time exceeds the long-press tolerance and the location movement is less than the drag tolerance.

The drag intent

A drag intent results in a single udragstart event, one or more udragmove events, and a final udragend event.

  • The Desktop motion is LMB down - mouse-move - LMB up where the mouse-down time exceeds the tap tolerance and the location movement is greater than the drag tolerance.
  • The Touch is touchstart-move-end, where the touch time exceeds drag tolerance,

The event order is as follows:

  • udragstart - fires at the start of a drag
  • udragmove - fires each time the pointer moves
  • udragend - fires at the end of a drag

The held-drag intent

The held-drag intent results in a single uheldstart event, one or more uheldmove events, and a final uheldend event.

  • The Desktop motion is LMB down+hold - mouse-move - LMB up where the mouse-down time exceeds the held tolerance and the mouse has stayed within the drag tolerance, after which the location movement is greater than the drag tolerance.
  • The Touch is touchstart+hold-move-end, where the touch time exceeds the held tolerance and the touch as stayed within the drag tolerance, after which the touch location is greater than the the drag tolerance.

The event order is as follows:

  • uheldstart - fires at the start of a held-drag
  • uheldmove - fires each time the pointer moves
  • uheldend - fires at the end of a held-drag

The zoom intent

A zoom intent results in a single uzoomstart event, one or more uzoommove events, and a final uzoomend event.

  • The Desktop motion is shift+LMB down - move-mouse - LMB up where the mouse-down time exceeds the tap tolerance and the location movement is greater than the drag tolerance.
  • The Touch motion is two-point-touch - pinch - two-point-release.

The event order is as follows:

  • uzoomstart - fires at the start of zoom
  • uzoommove - fires as zoom amount changes
  • uzoomend - fires at end of zoom motion

Event Attributes

The event object for all ue events include these attributes in addition to those already provided by jQuery:

var attr_list = [
  event.px_start_x,    // X-position at start of motion
  event.px_start_y,    // Y-ibid
  event.px_current_x,  // X-position, current
  event.px_current_y,  // Y-ibid
  event.px_end_x,      // X-position for x at end of motion
  event.px_end_y,      // Y-ibid
  event.px_delta_zoom, // Zoom delta since last motion event
  event.px_delta_x,    // X-ibid
  event.px_delta_y,    // Y-ibid
  event.px_tdelta_x,   // X-delta since beginning of motion
  event.px_tdelta_y,   // Y-ibid
  event.orig_target,   // Element under cursor at start of motion
  event.elem_bound,    // Element on which event was bound
  event.elem_target,   // Element under the cursor for *this* event
  event.timeStamp,     // Timestamp of this event
  event.ms_elapsed,    // Elapsed time since start of motion
  event.ms_timestart,  // Start time of motion
  event.ms_timestop,   // top time of motion
];

Error handling

This code ignores bad input, and does not throw exceptions. As JS implementations are (finally) seeing improved exception handling, expect this to change in 2.x.

Namespacing

jQuery event namespacing is fully supported, as shown in this example:

$( '#msg' )
  .on( 'utap.mytap',  onTapMsg  )
  .on( 'uheld.mytap', onHeldMsg );

$( '#msg' ).unbind( '.mytap' );

Use libraries, not frameworks

This is a library that strives to be best-in-class. If you are considering using an SPA framework, please read Do you really want an SPA framework? first.

Release Notes

Copyright (c) 2013-2016

Michael S. Mikowski (mike[dot]mikowski[at]gmail[dotcom])

License

Dual licensed under the MIT or GPL Version 2 http://jquery.org/license

Version 1.3.2

Updated to ignore most input elements (input, textarea, select) by default. See the ignore_select setting.

Version 1.3.0

  • Removed all references to console object
  • Changed deprecated bind and unbind to on and off

Version 1.2.0-5

  • Changed default option key ignore_class to ignore_select
  • The value is now "" instead of ":input"
  • Updated README and published to npm (1.2.5)

Version 1.1.9

Updated ue-test.html to handle zooming correctly.

Version 1.1.8

Stopped preventDefault() from firing on events not controlled by the plugin.

Versions 1.1.0-7

No code changes. Updated npm keywords. Fixed typos. Bumped version number to represent maturity and stability. Redirected library discussion to blog post.

Versions 0.6.1

The default px_radius parameter was doubled from 5px to 10px. This made utap and uheld events work much better on smaller screens. Confirmed compatible with with jQuery 2.1.4, thus 1.7.0 - 2.1.4 appear safe.

Versions 1.1.x

No code changes. Updated npm keywords. Fixed typos. Bumped version number to represent maturity and stability. Redirected library discussion to blog post.

Versions 0.6.0

Fixed held logic, added px_tdelta_x and px_tdelta_y to attributes. Updated test page to include expected results.

Versions 0.5.0-0.5.2

Updated docs, jslint compatibility, removed cruft, updated test page to include zoom support (shift + mb1 hold + mouse up/down ).

Versions 0.4.1-3

Updated documentation and npm release.

Version 0.3.2

Confirmed compatible with jQuery 1.7.0 through 1.9.1.

Version 0.3.1

First release registered with jQuery plugins.

Testing

Tested with Android 3.2 Chrome, iOS5+ Safari, Chrome 15+, Firefox 23, and IE 9+.

See also

The Hammer touch library, jQuery mobile.

TODO

Support a wider range of intents

Contribute!

If you want to help out, like all jQuery plugins this is hosted at GitHub. Any improvements or suggestions are welcome! You can reach me at mike[dot]mikowski[at]gmail[dotcom].

End