January 11, 2001 - Detecting the Mouse Button | WebReference

January 11, 2001 - Detecting the Mouse Button

Yehuda Shiran January 11, 2001
Detecting the Mouse Button
Tips: January 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

The e object holds a lot of information about the Netscape 6 event. The button property, for example, reveals which mouse button was clicked during the event firing. Possible values are 1 for the left button, 2 for the middle button, and 3 for the right button. The following statement prints the button property value to the status window:

window.status = e.button;
The status window is shown on the bottom left corner of Netscape 6 window. Notice that you have to pass the e object as a parameter to those functions which reference it. In the following example, we pass the e object as a parameter to colorItTan():

<DIV ID="demoDiv" STYLE="position:relative; left:100px; top:20px; width:220px; 
height:25px; color:blue; background-color:yellow;">Click me with the left button! 
Now with the right!</DIV>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
var demoObj;
function init() {
  demoObj = document.getElementById("demoDiv");
  demoObj.addEventListener("click", colorItTan, false);
}
function colorItTan(e) {
  demoObj.style.backgroundColor = "tan";
  window.status = e.button;
}
onload = init; 
// -->
</SCRIPT>

Get on Netscape 6 browser and play with this demo. Click the left button and then the right button. See the different values printed to the status window: 1 for the left, 2 for the middle button, and 3 for the right button.