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mousedown

The mousedown event is fired when a pointing device button is pressed on an element.

General info

Specification
DOM L3
Interface
MouseEvent
Bubbles
Yes
Cancelable
Yes
Target
Element
Default Action
Varies: Start a drag/drop operation; start a text selection; start a scroll/pan interaction (in combination with the middle mouse button, if supported)

Properties

Property Type Description
target Read only EventTarget The event target (the topmost target in the DOM tree).
type Read only DOMString The type of event.
bubbles Read only Boolean Whether the event normally bubbles or not
cancelable Read only Boolean Whether the event is cancellable or not?
view Read only WindowProxy document.defaultView (window of the document)
detail Read only long (float) A count of consecutive clicks that happened in a short amount of time, incremented by one.
currentTarget Read only EventTarget The node that had the event listener attached.
relatedTarget Read only EventTarget For mouseover, mouseout, mouseenter and mouseleave events: the target of the complementary event (the mouseleave target in the case of a mouseenter event). null otherwise.
screenX Read only long The X coordinate of the mouse pointer in global (screen) coordinates.
screenY Read only long The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer in global (screen) coordinates.
clientX Read only long The X coordinate of the mouse pointer in local (DOM content) coordinates.
clientY Read only long The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer in local (DOM content) coordinates.
button Read only unsigned short The button number that was pressed when the mouse event was fired: Left button=0, middle button=1 (if present), right button=2. For mice configured for left handed use in which the button actions are reversed the values are instead read from right to left.
buttons Read only unsigned short The buttons depressed when the mouse event was fired: Left button=1, Right button=2, Middle (wheel) button=4, 4th button (typically, "Browser Back" button)=8, 5th button (typically, "Browser Forward" button)=16. If two or more buttons are depressed, returns the logical sum of the values. E.g., if Left button and Right button are depressed, returns 3 (=1 | 2). More info.
mozPressure Read only float The amount of pressure applied to a touch or tabdevice when generating the event; this value ranges between 0.0 (minimum pressure) and 1.0 (maximum pressure).
ctrlKey Read only boolean true if the control key was down when the event was fired. false otherwise.
shiftKey Read only boolean true if the shift key was down when the event was fired. false otherwise.
altKey Read only boolean true if the alt key was down when the event was fired. false otherwise.
metaKey Read only boolean true if the meta key was down when the event was fired. false otherwise.

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Edge Opera Safari
Basic support (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
On disabled form elements (Yes)[1] No support (Yes) No support (Yes)[1] ?
Feature Android Edge Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support ? (Yes) ? ? ? ?
On disabled form elements ? No support ? ? ? ?

[1] Only works for <textarea> elements and some <input> element types.

See also

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events/mousedown