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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.

Note: It's important to note that in many cases, both pointer and mouse events get sent (in order to let non-pointer-specific code still interact with the user). If you use pointer events, you should call event.preventDefault() to keep the mouse event from being sent as well.

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

Specification	Status	Comment
Pointer Events – Level 2 The definition of 'PointerEvent' in that specification.	Editor's Draft	Non-stable version.
Pointer Events The definition of 'PointerEvent' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Feature	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	55	12	No 41¹	11 10 MS ²	42	No
`PointerEvent()` constructor	55	12	No 41¹	11 10 MS ²	42	No
`pointerId`	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`width`	55	12	No 41¹	11 10³	42	No
`height`	55	12	No 41¹	11 10³	42	No
`pressure`	55	12	No 41¹	11 10⁴	42	No
`tangentialPressure`	58	No	No 54⁵	No	45	No
`tiltX`	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`tiltY`	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`twist`	58	No	No 54⁵	No	45	No
`pointerType`	55	12	No 41¹	11 10⁶	42	No
`isPrimary`	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`getCoalescedEvents`	58	No	No	No	45	No

Feature	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Edge mobile	Firefox for Android	IE mobile	Opera Android	iOS Safari
Basic support	55	55	12	No 41¹	11 10 MS ²	42	No
`PointerEvent()` constructor	55	55	12	No 41¹	11 10 MS ²	42	No
`pointerId`	55	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`width`	55	55	12	No 41¹	11 10³	42	No
`height`	55	55	12	No 41¹	11 10³	42	No
`pressure`	55	55	12	No 41¹	11 10⁴	42	No
`tangentialPressure`	58	58	No	No 54⁵	No	45	No
`tiltX`	55	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`tiltY`	55	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`twist`	58	58	No	No 54⁵	No	45	No
`pointerType`	55	55	12	No 41¹	11 10⁶	42	No
`isPrimary`	55	55	12	No 41¹	10	42	No
`getCoalescedEvents`	58	58	No	No	No	45	No

1. From version 41: this feature is behind the dom.w3c_pointer_events.enabled preference (needs to be set to true). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.

2. See MSDN Pointer events updates.

3. Returns values in screen pixels instead of CSS document pixels.

4. Returns 0 instead of 0.5 on hardware that doesn't support pressure.

5. From version 54: this feature is behind the dom.w3c_pointer_events.enabled preference (needs to be set to true). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.

6. Returns an integer enumeration instead of a string.