tell pure touch event and pure gesture event apart? - javascript

I am doing iphone web development and I've noticed that: gesture events can also be touch events, which means a touch event handler also fires up when there is a gesture event.
Any way that I can add specific event handler to gesture (not touch)? Or how can I know if this is a pure touch event or a pure gesture event?

Edit: This was an answer for your original revision that asked if something is a "pure touch event". It won't help you with your changed question on getting pure gesture events.
Listen for gesture events and have a gesturing boolean that you check during touch events that is set to true by the event handler for the gesture events and set back to false by the event handler for the touch events if it is true.
I have not researched at all about these events, but here's a sample implementation:
var gesturing = false;
document.addEventListener(aTouchEventName, function () {
if (gesturing) {
return gesturing = false;
}
// your touch event handler code here
}, false);
document.addEventListener(aGestureEventName, function () {
gesturing = true;
}, false);

I am not sure the specifics on this but it looks like there are 3 events fired in a gesture.
-touchstart
-touchmove
-touchend
Ultimately your touch end will fire. What you can do is create a threshold amount between your star and end. And trigger a custom event if the (x,y) difference is past a certain amount.

Related

addEventListener not working on mobile/input element [duplicate]

I've used onclick events in my website. But when I open it in google chromes' developer mode's mobile view, nothing happens on touch on the elements which work on click with mouse. So my question is:
Do I have to also add ontouch events along with onclick events, or onClick event work on touch on all touch-screen devices?
P.S: You can see all of my codes here: https://github.com/SycoScientistRecords/sycoscientistrecords.github.io/
Or at the live website: http://sycoscientistrecords.github.io
And no I haven't tested the website on real phone.
onclick works fine on touchscreens; I've used it several times and have never had any problem.
You could consider using onmousedown instead of onclick. Or use jQuery to detect taps.
I found this detailed writeup at MDN very helpful. In particular:
the browser may fire both touch events and mouse events in response to the same user input [emphasis mine]
and
the element's touch event handlers should call preventDefault() and no additional mouse events will be dispatched
So, your touchstart or touchend listener can call evt.preventDefault() and your mousedown / mouseup listeners won't fire because they come later in the chain.
In Angular, I was able to detect whether I'd clicked a button using my mouse or my laptop's touchscreen, by changing (click)="doSomething()" to (mouseup)="doSomething(false)" (touchend)="doSomething(true); $event.preventDefault()". The method is called with true for touch events and false for mouse events.
onclick may not work on touch devices, I had this issue and the event ontouchstart sorts it.
if you use ontouchstart and onclick watch that you don't trigger the event twice.
this is another post related
onClick not working on mobile (touch)
New browsers have a pointerType which determines if the onClick is made by a mouse or via a touch. If you just want make adjustments in user behavior based on the input, using pointerType is the safest way.
if you are using jQuery:
$(selector).click(e => {
if (e.pointerType === "mouse") {} // mouse event
else {} // touch event
});
if you are using vanilla JS:
element.addEventListener('click', e => {
if (e.pointerType === "mouse") {} // mouse event
else {} // touch event
});
If you are using React, the event is wrapped around a synthetic event. To access the pointerType, you have to use the nativeEvent of the react event. Here is what you need to consider (especially if you are using Typescript). If the event is triggered by a mouse, the native event is an instance of MouseEvent which does not have pointerType, so, first you need to check the type of native event which will also take care of the typing problems in TS
<div
onClick={e => {
if (e.nativeEvent instanceof PointerEvent && e.nativeEvent.pointerType === 'touch') {} // Touch Event
else {} // Mouse Event
}}
></div>
Pro tip: If you want to test the touch event in development, use Chrome following this. Note that Safari has a responsive mode which simulates the framework of iPhones and iPads. However, Safari always registers a mouse event even when you are in responsive design mode and have selected an iPhone or iPad.

Treat short swipe as click

I have a mobile web app, which uses a lot of click event handlers on buttons, etc. All of this works fine if the user really "clicks" (i.e. "touchdown-touchup") the button. However if the user does a short swipe, then the click event does not fire. This causes a lot of complaints from my users that the app doesn't register clicks/taps and that other apps work correctly.
Of course, I can get coordinates of the touch in ontouchstart and ontouchend and compute the distance - but I need to also know whether that distance is under the maximum that the browser would treat as 'click'. I do not want to switch to using touchstart/touchend events instead of click.
I used to use fastclick.js library for handling clicks/taps in the past, but now use native 'click' events with touch-action: manipulation. Is there any way of specify/controlling the maximum movement of the finger on the button that still registers as a 'click'?
Update based on comments. The application is very large and there are hundreds if not thousands of event handler assignments throughout it (the app has been developed over the last 8 years). Changing all of these is not practical, therefore I'm looking for a solution that would allow me to either set the threshold once globally or solve the problem with a global-like touchstart/touchend handlers.
I thought this was an interesting problem so I took a shot at solving it for you. In a way it's somewhat similar to the problem of preventing a click event when a dblclick happens.
Using a distance threshold for a "short swipe" seems, to me at least, problematic in that the threshold distance might be system dependent. Instead of that I decided to trigger on if the "click" event actually happens. I used mousedown as a simulated touchstart and mouseup as a simulated touchend. mouseup always happens before click so it is similar to touchend in that respect.
Normally if you "click" (mousedown) on an element and then move your mouse pointer off the element, the click event does not happen. This is much like the situation you describe as being a "short swipe". After a certain distance the click event just doesn't happen. The code below will send a click event for the button even if you mousedown on it, move the pointer off it and then mouseup. I believe that this would solve the problem if you used it for touchstart and touchend instead
// The pre-exisiting click handler
function handleClick(ev) {
console.log('button clicked. do work.');
}
document.getElementById('theButton').addEventListener('click', handleClick);
// our global "touch" handlers
var touchHandler = {
curPending: null,
curElem: null,
handleTouch: function handleTouch(ev) {
switch (ev.type) {
case 'mousedown':
// capture the target that the click is being initiated on
touchHandler.curElem = ev.target;
// add an extra click handler so we know if the click event happens
ev.target.addEventListener('click', touchHandler.specialClick);
break;
case 'mouseup':
// start a pending click timer in case the click event doesn't happen
touchHandler.curPending = setTimeout(touchHandler.pendingClick, 1);
break;
}
},
specialClick: function(ev) {
// the click event happened
// clear our extra handler
touchHandler.curElem.removeEventListener('click', touchHandler.specialClick);
// make sure we don't send an extra click event
clearTimeout(touchHandler.curPending);
},
pendingClick: function() {
// we never heard the click event
// clear our extra handler
touchHandler.curElem.removeEventListener('click', touchHandler.specialClick);
// trigger a click event on the element that started it all
touchHandler.curElem.click();
}
};
// using "mousedown" as "touchstart" and "mouseup" as "touchend"
document.addEventListener('mouseup', touchHandler.handleTouch);
document.addEventListener('mousedown', touchHandler.handleTouch);
<p>I work when clicked normally but I also work when
mousedown, drag pointer off me, mouseup</p>
<button id="theButton">Click Me</button>

JavaScript touchend versus click dilemma

I am working on some javascript UI, and using a lot of touch events like 'touchend' for improved response on touch devices. However, there are some logical issues which are bugging me ...
I have seen that many developers mingle 'touchend' and 'click' in the same event. In many cases it will not hurt, but essentially the function would fire twice on touch devices:
button.on('click touchend', function(event) {
// this fires twice on touch devices
});
It has been suggested that one could detect touch capability, and set the event appropriately for example:
var myEvent = ('ontouchstart' in document.documentElement) ? 'touchend' : 'click';
button.on(myEvent, function(event) {
// this fires only once regardless of device
});
The problem with the above, is that it will break on devices that support both touch and mouse. If the user is currently using mouse on a dual-input device, the 'click' will not fire because only 'touchend' is assigned to the button.
Another solution is to detect the device (e.g. "iOS") and assign an event based on that:
Click event called twice on touchend in iPad.
Of course, the solution in the link above is only for iOS (not Android or other devices), and seems more like a "hack" to solve something quite elementary.
Another solution would be to detect mouse-motion, and combine it with touch-capability to figure out if the user is on mouse or touch. Problem of course being that the user might not be moving the mouse from when you want to detect it ...
The most reliable solution I can think of, is to use a simple debounce function to simply make sure the function only triggers once within a short interval (for example 100ms):
button.on('click touchend', $.debounce(100, function(event) {
// this fires only once on all devices
}));
Am I missing something, or does anyone have any better suggestions?
Edit: I found this link after my post, which suggests a similar solution as the above:
How to bind 'touchstart' and 'click' events but not respond to both?
After a day of research, I figured the best solution is to just stick to click and use https://github.com/ftlabs/fastclick to remove the touch delay. I am not 100% sure this is as efficient as touchend, but not far from at least.
I did figure out a way to disable triggering events twice on touch by using stopPropagation and preventDefault, but this is dodgy as it could interfere with other touch gestures depending on the element where it is applied:
button.on('touchend click', function(event) {
event.stopPropagation();
event.preventDefault();
// this fires once on all devices
});
I was in fact looking for a solution to combine touchstart on some UI elements, but I can't see how that can be combined with click other than the solution above.
This question is answered but maybe needs to be updated.
According to a notice from Google, there will be no 300-350ms delay any more if we include the line below in the <head> element.
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
That's it! And there will be no difference between click and touch event anymore!
Yes disabling double-tap zoom (and hence the click delay) is usually the best option. And we finally have good advice for doing this that will soon work on all browsers.
If, for some reason, you don't want to do that. You can also use UIEvent.sourceCapabilities.firesTouchEvents to explicitly ignore the redundant click. The polyfill for this does something similar to your debouncing code.
Hello you can implement the following way.
function eventHandler(event, selector) {
event.stopPropagation(); // Stop event bubbling.
event.preventDefault(); // Prevent default behaviour
if (event.type === 'touchend') selector.off('click'); // If event type was touch turn off clicks to prevent phantom clicks.
}
// Implement
$('.class').on('touchend click', function(event) {
eventHandler(event, $(this)); // Handle the event.
// Do somethings...
});
Your debounce function will delay handling of every click for 100 ms:
button.on('click touchend', $.debounce(100, function(event) {
// this is delayed a minimum of 100 ms
}));
Instead, I created a cancelDuplicates function that fires right away, but any subsequent calls within 10 ms will be cancelled:
function cancelDuplicates(fn, threshhold, scope) {
if (typeof threshhold !== 'number') threshhold = 10;
var last = 0;
return function () {
var now = +new Date;
if (now >= last + threshhold) {
last = now;
fn.apply(scope || this, arguments);
}
};
}
Usage:
button.on('click touchend', cancelDuplicates(function(event) {
// This fires right away, and calls within 10 ms after are cancelled.
}));
For me using 'onclick' in the html element itself, worked for both touch and click.
<div onclick="cardClicked(this);">Click or Touch Me</div>

Listening to mousedown AND touchstart on devices that use touch and a mouse (e.g. Surface) [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to bind 'touchstart' and 'click' events but not respond to both?
(37 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
So, I've run across an interesting problem while working on a Web application for the Microsoft Surface.
I want to add event listeners for when a user interacts with a DOM element. Now I can do:
if ('ontouchstart' in document.documentElement) {
//Attach code for touch event listeners
document.addEventListener("touchstart" myFunc, false);
} else {
//Attach code for mouse event listeners
document.addEventListener("mousedown" myFunc, false);
}
If the device didn't have a mouse input, this problem would be simple and the above code would work just fine. But the Surface (and many new Windows 8 computers) have BOTH a touch and mouse input. So the above code would only work when the user touched the device. The mouse event listeners would never be attached.
So then I thought, well, I could do this:
if ('ontouchstart' in document.documentElement) {
//Attach code for touch event listeners
document.addEventListener("touchstart" myFunc, false);
}
//Always attach code for mouse event listeners
document.addEventListener("mousedown" myFunc, false);
Devices that don't support touch wouldn't have the events attached, but a device that uses touch will register its handlers. The problem with this though is that myFunc() will be called twice on a touch device:
myFunc() will fire when "touchstart" is raised
Because touch browsers typically go through the cycle touchstart -> touchmove -> touchend -> mousedown -> mousemove -> mouseup -> click, myFunc() will be called again in "mousedown"
I've considered adding code tomyFunc() such that it calls e.preventDefault() but this seems to also block touchend as well as mousedown / mousemove / mouseup on some browsers (link).
I hate doing useragent sniffers, but it seems as if touch browsers have variations in how touch events are implemented.
I must be missing something because it seems that surely these JavaScript implementations were decided with possibility of a browser supporting both a mouse and touch!
For windows 8 you can use the "MSPointerDown " event.
if (window.navigator.msPointerEnabled) {
document.addEventListener("MSPointerDown" myFunc, false);
}
Also add the following to your style:
html {
-ms-touch-action: none; /* Direct all pointer events to JavaScript code. */
}
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh673557(v=vs.85).aspx for more info.
Inside myFunc, check the event type. If it's touchstart, then do e.stopPropagation().
function myFunc(e) {
if (e.type === 'touchstart') {
e.stopPropagation();
}
//the rest of your code here
}
EDITED:
If you use jQuery, you will be able to do like this:
var clickEventType=((document.ontouchstart!==null)?'mousedown':'touchstart');
$("a").bind(clickEventType, function() {
//Do something
});
This will fire only one of the bind's event.
Found here: How to bind 'touchstart' and 'click' events but not respond to both?

Using mousedown event on mobile without jQuery mobile?

I've built a webapp, and for a little bit of polish, I wanted to add mousedown and mouseup handlers to swap out images (in this case, to make a button look like it's being pressed).
my code is something like this:
window.onload = function() {
//preload mouse down image here via Image()
$("#button_img").mousedown(function(){$("#button_img").attr("src","button_on.png");});
$("#button_img").mouseup(function(){$("#button_img").attr("src","button_off.png")});
}
This works swimmingly on the desktop, but on mobile (testing in iOS Safari), the mousedown and mouseup events happen at the same time, so effectively nothing happens.
I tried to use the vmousedown and vmouseup events in jQueryMobile, however this code:
//include jquerymobile.js and jquerymobile.css
window.onload = function() {
//preload mouse down image here via Image()
$("#button_img").vmousedown(function(){$("#button_img").attr("src","button_on.png");});
$("#button_img").vmouseup(function(){$("#button_img").attr("src","button_off.png")});
}
Just gave me the errors that vmousedown and vmouseup don't exist. Also, jQueryMobile overrides the CSS I've already written for the page.
So is there a way to get vmousedown and vmouseup to work, and to do so without jQuery Mobile's CSS?
You're looking for touchstart and touchend. They are the events that vmousedown and vmouseup attempt to mimic.
Here's an example:
window.onload = function() {
//preload mouse down image here via Image()
$("#button_img").bind('touchstart', function(){
$("#button_img").attr("src","button_on.png");
}).bind('touchend', function(){
$("#button_img").attr("src","button_off.png");
});
}
This will work without any framework on any device that supports touch events. You could use something like Modernizr to do this test and if the device does not support touch events, bind to the regular desktop events.
When you use touchstart/touchend/touchmove you get some interesting information, for instance how many touches are occurring at once, so you can detect if the user is scrolling or attempting to zoom.
UPDATE
Since the event object inside an event handler differs for touch events and mouse events, if you want to know the coordinates of the event either way, you can do something like this (the example below assumes Modernizr has been loaded):
//determine which events to use
var startEventType = 'mousedown',
endEventType = 'mouseup';
if (Modernizr.touch === true) {
startEventType = 'touchstart';
endEventType = 'touchend';
}
//bind to determined event(s)
$("#button_img").bind(startEventType, function(event) {
//determine where to look for pageX by the event type
var pageX = (startEventType === 'mousedown')
? event.pageX
: event.originalEvent.touches[0].pageX;
...
})...
UPDATE
I was looking this over and it seems like you don't need to detect the event type before binding the event handler:
//bind to determined event(s)
$("#button_img").bind('mousedown touchstart', function(event) {
//determine where to look for pageX by the event type
var pageX = (event.type.toLowerCase() === 'mousedown')
? event.pageX
: event.originalEvent.touches[0].pageX;
...
})...
If you are worried about receiving both events in quick succession you could use a timeout to throttle the event handler:
//create timer
var timer = null;
//bind to determined event(s)
$("#button_img").bind('mousedown touchstart', function(event) {
//clear timer
clearTimeout(timer);
//set timer
timer = setTimeout(function () {
//determine where to look for pageX by the event type
var pageX = (event.type.toLowerCase() === 'mousedown')
? event.pageX
: event.originalEvent.touches[0].pageX;
...
}, 50);
})...
Note: You can force mousedown and touchstart events in quick succession with developer tools but I'm not sure about the real world use case here.
Have you considered styling your buttons using CSS instead? the :active state will be triggered when a user is clicking/touching the element. Here is an example:
/* Default state */
#button_img {
background-image: url('button_off.png');
}
/* Clicked/touched state */
#button_img:active {
background-image: url('button_on.png');
}
CSS will be much more performant and you will also be able to better separate concerns (display vs logic, etc).
JSBin: http://jsbin.com/beyin/1/
There is a way to get the vmouseup, vmousedown, vmousemove, vclick, etc. functionality of jQueryMobile without getting all the rest (and especially the side effects) of jquerymobile (i.e. enhancement, extra css, and the like)
Go to http://jquerymobile.com/download-builder/ (a tool for downloading a custom build of jquerymobile with only the components you need)
select ONLY "Virtual Mouse (vmouse) Bindings"
download it.
The download will contain only a single .js files (in both minimized and uncompressed version). No css.
Link this script in the head of your html after plain jquery, and use it like this:
<head>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.4/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
<script src="whatever/path/jquery.mobile.custom.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(function(){ // or replace this with window.onload for that matter
// Your code here, e.g.
$("#button_img").on("vmousedown", function() {
/*whatever*/
});
// CAUTION: this won't work (see note below):
// $("#button_img").vmousedown(function(){/*whatever*/}); // WON'T WORK
});
</script>
</head>
NOTE: the methods .vmousedown(), .vmouseup(), etc. won't work. You have to bind the event listener with .on("vmousedown", ...).
Not sure why: I guess this is because the part of jquerymobile that creates shortcut methods with the same name as the events is in some other module. Maybe it is possible to figure out which module it is and include it in the download, but I think it would force you to include other undesired dependencies.
Use touchstart or touchend for touch devices.
Most times you want to catch touchstart as well as mousedown. You need to make sure though that the handler is only triggered once. The simplest way to do this is to catch them both and call e.preventDefault().
$("#button_img").on('touchstart mousedown', function(e) {
//your code...
e.preventDefault(); //prevents further events from being dispatched
}
Source: developer.mozilla.org:
If the browser fires both touch and mouse events because of a single user input, the browser must fire a touchstart before any mouse events. Consequently, if an application does not want mouse events fired on a specific touch target element, the element's touch event handlers should call preventDefault() and no additional mouse events will be dispatched.

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