When handling a jQuery event with multiple selectors, can I get the value of the selector triggered the event?
I'm aware of jQuery multiple selectors, get which selector triggered event and similar questions, but none of them seem to contain an answer to the fundamental question.
Suppose I have 3 buttons:
<button class='red stop danger'>red</button>
<button class='amber floor-it caution'>amber</button>
<button class='green go safe'>green</button>
With the accompanying Javascript code:
var clickCounts = {
red: 0,
green: 0
};
// we only want to count red and green clicks
$('.red, .green').click(function() {
// can't use clickCounts[$(this).attr('class')]
// because there are multiple class values present
clickCounts[??selector??] += 1;
});
If the only way to achieve this is by making a bunch of calls to is() or hasClass(), or write per-button handlers etc. then so be it, but I have yet to see a definitive answer.
Why not apply an ID to the button, and use that as your selector, instead of the class?
<button class='red stop danger' id="red">red</button>
<button class='green go safe' id="green">green</button>
Then:
$('#red, #green').click(function() {
clickCounts[$(this).attr('id')] += 1;
});
if you want per button counts,
i would personally stash it on a data attribute:
$('.red, .green').click(function() {
lastCount = $(this).data('clicks') || 0;
$(this).data('clicks', lastCount +1);
});
if you want global red/green counts,
i would do two separate handlers:
var clickCounts = {
red: 0,
green: 0
};
$('.red').click(function() {
clickCounts.red += 1;
});
$('.green').click(function() {
clickCounts.green += 1;
});
If you are just curious,
sorry I don't have an actual answer as to how to get the triggering selector for a jquery event; I suggest posting an issue
You can use Element.matches() and (for older browsers) Element. matchesSelector. For example:
$('.red, .green').click(function (e) {
var sel;
if ( e.target.matches && e.target.matches('.red') ||
e.target. matchesSelector && e.target. matchesSelector('.red')) {
sel = 'red';
} else {
sel = 'green';
}
clickCounts[sel] += 1;
});
You may want to try this:
http://jsfiddle.net/w3z3bfp4/1/
<button name='red' class='red stop danger'>red</button>
<button class='amber floor-it caution'>amber</button>
<button name='green' class='green go safe'>green</button>
$('.red, .green').click(function(e) {
clickCounts[e.target.name] += 1;
alert('RED '+clickCounts.red);
alert('GREEN '+clickCounts.green)
});
Related
I am making a webpage that has a baseball strikezone with 25 buttons that will be clickable in 25 locations. I need to know if there is a easier way to do this then what I am doing. Maybe something that will take up far less lines. The button is clicked and then the counter is added by one to another table.
$('#one').click(function(){
counter++;
$('#ones').text(counter);
});
var countertwo = 0;
$('#two').click(function(){
countertwo ++;
$('#twos').text(countertwo);
});
A bit of a guess here, but:
You can store the counter on the button itself.
If you do, and you give the buttons a common class (or some other way to group them), you can have one click handler handle all of them.
You can probably find the other element that you're updating using a structural CSS query rather than id values.
But relying on those ID values:
$(".the-common-class").click(function() {
// Get a jQuery wrapper for this element.
var $this = $(this);
// Get its counter, if it has one, or 0 if it doesn't, and add one to it
var counter = ($this.data("counter") || 0) + 1;
// Store the result
$this.data("counter", counter);
// Show that in the other element, basing the ID of what we look for
// on this element's ID plus "s"
$("#" + this.id + "s").text(counter);
});
That last bit, relating the elements by ID naming convention, is the weakest bit and could almost certainly be made much better with more information about your structure.
You can use something like this:
<button class="button" data-location="ones">One</button>
...
<button class="button" data-location="twenties">Twenty</button>
<div id="ones" class="location">0</div>
...
<div id="twenties" class="location">0</div>
$('.button').on('click', function() {
var locationId = $(this).data('location')
, $location = $('#' + locationId);
$location.text(parseInt($location.text()) + 1);
});
Also see this code on JsFiddle
More clean solution with automatic counter
/* JS */
$(function() {
var $buttons = $('.withCounter'),
counters = [];
function increaseCounter() {
var whichCounter = $buttons.index(this)+1;
counters[whichCounter] = counters[whichCounter] ? counters[whichCounter] += 1 : 1;
$("#counter"+whichCounter).text(counters[whichCounter]);
}
$buttons.click(increaseCounter);
});
<!-- HTML -->
<button class="withCounter">One</button>
<button class="withCounter">Two</button>
<button class="withCounter">Three</button>
<button class="withCounter">Four</button>
<p id="counter1">0</p>
<p id="counter2">0</p>
<p id="counter3">0</p>
<p id="counter4">0</p>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
I want a function that tells me which element the mouse cursor is over.
So, for example, if the user's mouse is over this textarea (with id wmd-input), calling window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on() will be functionally equivalent to $("#wmd-input").
DEMO
There's a really cool function called document.elementFromPoint which does what it sounds like.
What we need is to find the x and y coords of the mouse and then call it using those values:
document.addEventListener('mousemove', e => {
console.clear()
console.log( document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY) )
}, {passive: true})
[class^='level']{
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
padding: 15px;
background: #00000033;
}
<div class='level-1'>
<div class='level-2'>
<div class='level-3'>
Hover
</div>
</div>
</div>
document.elementFromPoint
jQuery event object
In newer browsers, you could do the following:
document.querySelectorAll( ":hover" );
That'll give you a NodeList of items that the mouse is currently over in document order. The last element in the NodeList is the most specific, each preceding one should be a parent, grandparent, and so on.
Although the following may not actually answering the question, since this is the first result of googling (the googler may not asking exactly the same question:), hope it will provide some extra input.
There are actually two different approaches to get a list of all elements the mouse is currently over (for newer browsers, perhaps):
The "structural" approach - Ascending DOM tree
As in dherman's answer, one can call
var elements = document.querySelectorAll(':hover');
However, this assumes that only children will overlay their ancestors, which is usually the case, but not true in general, especially when dealing with SVG where element in different branches of the DOM tree may overlap each other.
The "visual" approach - Based on "visual" overlapping
This method uses document.elementFromPoint(x, y) to find the topmost element, temporarily hide it (since we recover it immediately in the same context, the browser will not actually renders this), then go on to find the second topmost element... Looks a little hacky, but it returns what you expect when there are, e.g., siblings elements in a tree occluding each other. Please find this post for more details,
function allElementsFromPoint(x, y) {
var element, elements = [];
var old_visibility = [];
while (true) {
element = document.elementFromPoint(x, y);
if (!element || element === document.documentElement) {
break;
}
elements.push(element);
old_visibility.push(element.style.visibility);
element.style.visibility = 'hidden'; // Temporarily hide the element (without changing the layout)
}
for (var k = 0; k < elements.length; k++) {
elements[k].style.visibility = old_visibility[k];
}
elements.reverse();
return elements;
}
Try both, and check their different returns.
elementFromPoint() gets only the first element in DOM tree. This is mostly not enough for developers needs. To get more than one element at e.g. the current mouse pointer position, this is the function you need:
document.elementsFromPoint(x, y) . // Mind the 's' in elements
This returns an array of all element objects under the given point.
Just pass the mouse X and Y values to this function.
More information is here: DocumentOrShadowRoot.elementsFromPoint()
For very old browsers which are not supported, you may use this answer as a fallback.
The following code will help you to get the element of the mouse pointer. The resulted elements will display in the console.
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
console.log(document.elementFromPoint(e.pageX, e.pageY));
})
Mouseover events bubble, so you can put a single listener on the body and wait for them to bubble up, then grab the event.target or event.srcElement:
function getTarget(event) {
var el = event.target || event.srcElement;
return el.nodeType == 1? el : el.parentNode;
}
<body onmouseover="doSomething(getTarget(event));">
You can look at the target of the mouseover event on some suitable ancestor:
var currentElement = null;
document.addEventListener('mouseover', function (e) {
currentElement = e.target;
});
Here’s a demo.
Demo :D
Move your mouse in the snippet window :D
<script>
document.addEventListener('mouseover', function (e) {
console.log ("You are in ", e.target.tagName);
});
</script>
<!-- One simple solution to your problem could be like this: -->
<div>
<input type="text" id="fname" onmousemove="javascript: alert(this.id);" />
<!-- OR -->
<input type="text" id="fname" onclick="javascript: alert(this.id);" />
</div>
<!-- Both mousemove over the field & click on the field displays "fname"-->
<!-- Works fantastic in IE, FireFox, Chrome, Opera. -->
<!-- I didn't test it for Safari. -->
You can use this selector to undermouse object and then manipulate it as a jQuery object:
$(':hover').last();
2022 Update:
document.elementsFromPoint() (Note the 's' in elements) is compatible with all major browsers. It basically does the same thing that elementFrompoint does, but retrieves all the elements in DOM order.
Mozilla has a good example of this:
HTML
<div>
<p>Some text</p>
</div>
<p>Elements at point 30, 20:</p>
<div id="output"></div>
JavaScript
let output = document.getElementById("output");
if (document.elementsFromPoint) {
let elements = document.elementsFromPoint(30, 20);
for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
output.textContent += elements[i].localName;
if (i < elements.length - 1) {
output.textContent += " < ";
}
}
} else {
output.innerHTML = "<span style=\"color: red;\">" +
"Browser does not support <code>document.elementsFromPoint()</code>" +
"</span>";
}
Output
Some text
Elements at point 30, 20:
p < div < body < html
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/elementsFromPoint
The target of the mousemove DOM event is the top-most DOM element under the cursor when the mouse moves:
(function(){
//Don't fire multiple times in a row for the same element
var prevTarget=null;
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
//This will be the top-most DOM element under cursor
var target=e.target;
if(target!==prevTarget){
console.log(target);
prevTarget=target;
}
});
})();
This is similar to #Philip Walton's solution, but doesn't require jQuery or a setInterval.
Here's a solution for those that may still be struggling. You want to add a mouseover event on the 'parent' element of the child element(s) you want detected. The below code shows you how to go about it.
const wrapper = document.getElementById('wrapper') //parent element
const position = document.getElementById("displaySelection")
wrapper.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
let elementPointed = document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY)
console.log(elementPointed)
});
Demo on CodePen
Let me start out by saying that I don't recommend using the method I'm about to suggest. It's much better to use event driven development and bind events only to the elements you're interested in knowing whether or not the mouse is over with mouseover, mouseout, mouseenter, mouseleave, etc.
If you absolutely must have the ability to know which element the mouse is over, you'd need to write a function that binds the mouseover event to everything in the DOM, and then store whatever the current element is in some variable.
You could so something like this:
window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on = (function() {
var currentElement;
$("body *").on('mouseover', function(e) {
if(e.target === e.currentTarget) {
currentElement = this;
}
});
return function() {
console.log(currentElement);
}
}());
Basically, I've created an immediate function which sets the event on all elements and stores the current element within the closure to minimize your footprint.
Here's a working demo that calls window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on every second and logs what element the mouse is currently over to the console.
http://jsfiddle.net/LWFpJ/1/
I want a function that tells me which element the mouse cursor is over.
So, for example, if the user's mouse is over this textarea (with id wmd-input), calling window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on() will be functionally equivalent to $("#wmd-input").
DEMO
There's a really cool function called document.elementFromPoint which does what it sounds like.
What we need is to find the x and y coords of the mouse and then call it using those values:
document.addEventListener('mousemove', e => {
console.clear()
console.log( document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY) )
}, {passive: true})
[class^='level']{
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
padding: 15px;
background: #00000033;
}
<div class='level-1'>
<div class='level-2'>
<div class='level-3'>
Hover
</div>
</div>
</div>
document.elementFromPoint
jQuery event object
In newer browsers, you could do the following:
document.querySelectorAll( ":hover" );
That'll give you a NodeList of items that the mouse is currently over in document order. The last element in the NodeList is the most specific, each preceding one should be a parent, grandparent, and so on.
Although the following may not actually answering the question, since this is the first result of googling (the googler may not asking exactly the same question:), hope it will provide some extra input.
There are actually two different approaches to get a list of all elements the mouse is currently over (for newer browsers, perhaps):
The "structural" approach - Ascending DOM tree
As in dherman's answer, one can call
var elements = document.querySelectorAll(':hover');
However, this assumes that only children will overlay their ancestors, which is usually the case, but not true in general, especially when dealing with SVG where element in different branches of the DOM tree may overlap each other.
The "visual" approach - Based on "visual" overlapping
This method uses document.elementFromPoint(x, y) to find the topmost element, temporarily hide it (since we recover it immediately in the same context, the browser will not actually renders this), then go on to find the second topmost element... Looks a little hacky, but it returns what you expect when there are, e.g., siblings elements in a tree occluding each other. Please find this post for more details,
function allElementsFromPoint(x, y) {
var element, elements = [];
var old_visibility = [];
while (true) {
element = document.elementFromPoint(x, y);
if (!element || element === document.documentElement) {
break;
}
elements.push(element);
old_visibility.push(element.style.visibility);
element.style.visibility = 'hidden'; // Temporarily hide the element (without changing the layout)
}
for (var k = 0; k < elements.length; k++) {
elements[k].style.visibility = old_visibility[k];
}
elements.reverse();
return elements;
}
Try both, and check their different returns.
elementFromPoint() gets only the first element in DOM tree. This is mostly not enough for developers needs. To get more than one element at e.g. the current mouse pointer position, this is the function you need:
document.elementsFromPoint(x, y) . // Mind the 's' in elements
This returns an array of all element objects under the given point.
Just pass the mouse X and Y values to this function.
More information is here: DocumentOrShadowRoot.elementsFromPoint()
For very old browsers which are not supported, you may use this answer as a fallback.
The following code will help you to get the element of the mouse pointer. The resulted elements will display in the console.
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
console.log(document.elementFromPoint(e.pageX, e.pageY));
})
Mouseover events bubble, so you can put a single listener on the body and wait for them to bubble up, then grab the event.target or event.srcElement:
function getTarget(event) {
var el = event.target || event.srcElement;
return el.nodeType == 1? el : el.parentNode;
}
<body onmouseover="doSomething(getTarget(event));">
You can look at the target of the mouseover event on some suitable ancestor:
var currentElement = null;
document.addEventListener('mouseover', function (e) {
currentElement = e.target;
});
Here’s a demo.
Demo :D
Move your mouse in the snippet window :D
<script>
document.addEventListener('mouseover', function (e) {
console.log ("You are in ", e.target.tagName);
});
</script>
<!-- One simple solution to your problem could be like this: -->
<div>
<input type="text" id="fname" onmousemove="javascript: alert(this.id);" />
<!-- OR -->
<input type="text" id="fname" onclick="javascript: alert(this.id);" />
</div>
<!-- Both mousemove over the field & click on the field displays "fname"-->
<!-- Works fantastic in IE, FireFox, Chrome, Opera. -->
<!-- I didn't test it for Safari. -->
You can use this selector to undermouse object and then manipulate it as a jQuery object:
$(':hover').last();
2022 Update:
document.elementsFromPoint() (Note the 's' in elements) is compatible with all major browsers. It basically does the same thing that elementFrompoint does, but retrieves all the elements in DOM order.
Mozilla has a good example of this:
HTML
<div>
<p>Some text</p>
</div>
<p>Elements at point 30, 20:</p>
<div id="output"></div>
JavaScript
let output = document.getElementById("output");
if (document.elementsFromPoint) {
let elements = document.elementsFromPoint(30, 20);
for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
output.textContent += elements[i].localName;
if (i < elements.length - 1) {
output.textContent += " < ";
}
}
} else {
output.innerHTML = "<span style=\"color: red;\">" +
"Browser does not support <code>document.elementsFromPoint()</code>" +
"</span>";
}
Output
Some text
Elements at point 30, 20:
p < div < body < html
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/elementsFromPoint
The target of the mousemove DOM event is the top-most DOM element under the cursor when the mouse moves:
(function(){
//Don't fire multiple times in a row for the same element
var prevTarget=null;
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
//This will be the top-most DOM element under cursor
var target=e.target;
if(target!==prevTarget){
console.log(target);
prevTarget=target;
}
});
})();
This is similar to #Philip Walton's solution, but doesn't require jQuery or a setInterval.
Here's a solution for those that may still be struggling. You want to add a mouseover event on the 'parent' element of the child element(s) you want detected. The below code shows you how to go about it.
const wrapper = document.getElementById('wrapper') //parent element
const position = document.getElementById("displaySelection")
wrapper.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
let elementPointed = document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY)
console.log(elementPointed)
});
Demo on CodePen
Let me start out by saying that I don't recommend using the method I'm about to suggest. It's much better to use event driven development and bind events only to the elements you're interested in knowing whether or not the mouse is over with mouseover, mouseout, mouseenter, mouseleave, etc.
If you absolutely must have the ability to know which element the mouse is over, you'd need to write a function that binds the mouseover event to everything in the DOM, and then store whatever the current element is in some variable.
You could so something like this:
window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on = (function() {
var currentElement;
$("body *").on('mouseover', function(e) {
if(e.target === e.currentTarget) {
currentElement = this;
}
});
return function() {
console.log(currentElement);
}
}());
Basically, I've created an immediate function which sets the event on all elements and stores the current element within the closure to minimize your footprint.
Here's a working demo that calls window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on every second and logs what element the mouse is currently over to the console.
http://jsfiddle.net/LWFpJ/1/
I want to click all buttons on a page that have the attribute data-capture='noiseClicked'
This is my code so far:
javascript: (function() {
var followButtons = $("li.js-profile-card button[data-capture='noiseClicked']");
var index = followButtons.length - 1;
follow();
function follow() {
if (index >= 0) {
$(followButtons[index--]).click();
setTimeout(follow, 1);
}
}
})();
However I want to exclude buttons that have a parent of li.noise--active or li.friend--active
So the following would be clicked:
<li class="js-profile-card noise--active"><button data-capture="noiseClicked" type="button"></button></li>
but the following would not be clicked...
<li class="js-profile-card noise--active"><button data-capture="noiseClicked" type="button"></button></li>
or
<li class="js-profile-card friend--active"><button data-capture="noiseClicked" type="button"></button></li>
I thought that jquery's not selector would be helpful here, but I'm not sure how to use it to exclude a parent element with a specific attribute and I don't know how to exclude two different attributes (noise--active and friend--active)
Thanks.
You can use parent & hasClass methods for this:
var indexToSet = index--;
if( !$(followButtons[indexToSet]).parent().hasClass( 'noise--active' ) && !$(followButtons[indexToSet]).parent().hasClass( 'friend--active' )) {
$(followButtons[indexToSet]).click();
}
EDIT:
to travel up in the node list better to use closest() method:
var indexToSet = index--;
if( !$(followButtons[indexToSet]).closest( 'noise--active' ).length && !$(followButtons[indexToSet]).closest( 'friend--active' ).length ) {
$(followButtons[indexToSet]).click();
}
:not selector might come handy:
var followButtons = $("li.js-profile-card:not(.noise--active,.friend--active) button[data-capture='noiseClicked']");
I want a function that tells me which element the mouse cursor is over.
So, for example, if the user's mouse is over this textarea (with id wmd-input), calling window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on() will be functionally equivalent to $("#wmd-input").
DEMO
There's a really cool function called document.elementFromPoint which does what it sounds like.
What we need is to find the x and y coords of the mouse and then call it using those values:
document.addEventListener('mousemove', e => {
console.clear()
console.log( document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY) )
}, {passive: true})
[class^='level']{
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
padding: 15px;
background: #00000033;
}
<div class='level-1'>
<div class='level-2'>
<div class='level-3'>
Hover
</div>
</div>
</div>
document.elementFromPoint
jQuery event object
In newer browsers, you could do the following:
document.querySelectorAll( ":hover" );
That'll give you a NodeList of items that the mouse is currently over in document order. The last element in the NodeList is the most specific, each preceding one should be a parent, grandparent, and so on.
Although the following may not actually answering the question, since this is the first result of googling (the googler may not asking exactly the same question:), hope it will provide some extra input.
There are actually two different approaches to get a list of all elements the mouse is currently over (for newer browsers, perhaps):
The "structural" approach - Ascending DOM tree
As in dherman's answer, one can call
var elements = document.querySelectorAll(':hover');
However, this assumes that only children will overlay their ancestors, which is usually the case, but not true in general, especially when dealing with SVG where element in different branches of the DOM tree may overlap each other.
The "visual" approach - Based on "visual" overlapping
This method uses document.elementFromPoint(x, y) to find the topmost element, temporarily hide it (since we recover it immediately in the same context, the browser will not actually renders this), then go on to find the second topmost element... Looks a little hacky, but it returns what you expect when there are, e.g., siblings elements in a tree occluding each other. Please find this post for more details,
function allElementsFromPoint(x, y) {
var element, elements = [];
var old_visibility = [];
while (true) {
element = document.elementFromPoint(x, y);
if (!element || element === document.documentElement) {
break;
}
elements.push(element);
old_visibility.push(element.style.visibility);
element.style.visibility = 'hidden'; // Temporarily hide the element (without changing the layout)
}
for (var k = 0; k < elements.length; k++) {
elements[k].style.visibility = old_visibility[k];
}
elements.reverse();
return elements;
}
Try both, and check their different returns.
elementFromPoint() gets only the first element in DOM tree. This is mostly not enough for developers needs. To get more than one element at e.g. the current mouse pointer position, this is the function you need:
document.elementsFromPoint(x, y) . // Mind the 's' in elements
This returns an array of all element objects under the given point.
Just pass the mouse X and Y values to this function.
More information is here: DocumentOrShadowRoot.elementsFromPoint()
For very old browsers which are not supported, you may use this answer as a fallback.
The following code will help you to get the element of the mouse pointer. The resulted elements will display in the console.
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
console.log(document.elementFromPoint(e.pageX, e.pageY));
})
Mouseover events bubble, so you can put a single listener on the body and wait for them to bubble up, then grab the event.target or event.srcElement:
function getTarget(event) {
var el = event.target || event.srcElement;
return el.nodeType == 1? el : el.parentNode;
}
<body onmouseover="doSomething(getTarget(event));">
You can look at the target of the mouseover event on some suitable ancestor:
var currentElement = null;
document.addEventListener('mouseover', function (e) {
currentElement = e.target;
});
Here’s a demo.
Demo :D
Move your mouse in the snippet window :D
<script>
document.addEventListener('mouseover', function (e) {
console.log ("You are in ", e.target.tagName);
});
</script>
<!-- One simple solution to your problem could be like this: -->
<div>
<input type="text" id="fname" onmousemove="javascript: alert(this.id);" />
<!-- OR -->
<input type="text" id="fname" onclick="javascript: alert(this.id);" />
</div>
<!-- Both mousemove over the field & click on the field displays "fname"-->
<!-- Works fantastic in IE, FireFox, Chrome, Opera. -->
<!-- I didn't test it for Safari. -->
You can use this selector to undermouse object and then manipulate it as a jQuery object:
$(':hover').last();
2022 Update:
document.elementsFromPoint() (Note the 's' in elements) is compatible with all major browsers. It basically does the same thing that elementFrompoint does, but retrieves all the elements in DOM order.
Mozilla has a good example of this:
HTML
<div>
<p>Some text</p>
</div>
<p>Elements at point 30, 20:</p>
<div id="output"></div>
JavaScript
let output = document.getElementById("output");
if (document.elementsFromPoint) {
let elements = document.elementsFromPoint(30, 20);
for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
output.textContent += elements[i].localName;
if (i < elements.length - 1) {
output.textContent += " < ";
}
}
} else {
output.innerHTML = "<span style=\"color: red;\">" +
"Browser does not support <code>document.elementsFromPoint()</code>" +
"</span>";
}
Output
Some text
Elements at point 30, 20:
p < div < body < html
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/elementsFromPoint
The target of the mousemove DOM event is the top-most DOM element under the cursor when the mouse moves:
(function(){
//Don't fire multiple times in a row for the same element
var prevTarget=null;
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
//This will be the top-most DOM element under cursor
var target=e.target;
if(target!==prevTarget){
console.log(target);
prevTarget=target;
}
});
})();
This is similar to #Philip Walton's solution, but doesn't require jQuery or a setInterval.
Here's a solution for those that may still be struggling. You want to add a mouseover event on the 'parent' element of the child element(s) you want detected. The below code shows you how to go about it.
const wrapper = document.getElementById('wrapper') //parent element
const position = document.getElementById("displaySelection")
wrapper.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
let elementPointed = document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY)
console.log(elementPointed)
});
Demo on CodePen
Let me start out by saying that I don't recommend using the method I'm about to suggest. It's much better to use event driven development and bind events only to the elements you're interested in knowing whether or not the mouse is over with mouseover, mouseout, mouseenter, mouseleave, etc.
If you absolutely must have the ability to know which element the mouse is over, you'd need to write a function that binds the mouseover event to everything in the DOM, and then store whatever the current element is in some variable.
You could so something like this:
window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on = (function() {
var currentElement;
$("body *").on('mouseover', function(e) {
if(e.target === e.currentTarget) {
currentElement = this;
}
});
return function() {
console.log(currentElement);
}
}());
Basically, I've created an immediate function which sets the event on all elements and stores the current element within the closure to minimize your footprint.
Here's a working demo that calls window.which_element_is_the_mouse_on every second and logs what element the mouse is currently over to the console.
http://jsfiddle.net/LWFpJ/1/