Element: auxclick event
The auxclick
event is fired at an Element
when a non-primary pointing device button (any mouse button other than the primary—usually leftmost—button) has been pressed and released both within the same element.
auxclick
is fired after the mousedown
and mouseup
events have been fired, in that order.
Syntax
Use the event name in methods like addEventListener()
, or set an event handler property.
addEventListener("auxclick", (event) => {});
onauxclick = (event) => {};
Event type
A PointerEvent
. Inherits from MouseEvent
.
Note: In earlier versions of the specification the event type for this event was a MouseEvent
, and this is still the type passed in Firefox and Safari.
Event properties
This interface inherits properties from MouseEvent
and Event
.
PointerEvent.altitudeAngle
Read only Experimental-
Represents the angle between a transducer (a pointer or stylus) axis and the X-Y plane of a device screen.
PointerEvent.azimuthAngle
Read only Experimental-
Represents the angle between the Y-Z plane and the plane containing both the transducer (a pointer or stylus) axis and the Y axis.
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
to1
, where0
and1
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
to1
, where0
is the neutral position of the control. PointerEvent.tiltX
Read only-
The plane angle (in degrees, in the range of
-90
to90
) between the Y–Z plane and the plane containing both the pointer (e.g. pen stylus) axis and the Y axis. PointerEvent.tiltY
Read only-
The plane angle (in degrees, in the range of
-90
to90
) between the X–Z plane and the plane containing both the pointer (e.g. pen stylus) axis and the X axis. PointerEvent.twist
Read only-
The clockwise rotation of the pointer (e.g. pen stylus) around its major axis in degrees, with a value in the range
0
to359
. 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.
Preventing default actions
For the vast majority of browsers that map middle click to opening a link in a new tab, including Firefox, it is possible to cancel this behavior by calling preventDefault()
from within an auxclick
event handler.
When listening for auxclick
events originating on elements that do not support input or navigation, you will often want to explicitly prevent other default actions mapped to the down action of the middle mouse button. On Windows this is usually autoscroll, and on macOS and Linux this is usually clipboard paste. This can be done by preventing the default behavior of the mousedown
or pointerdown
event.
Additionally, you may need to avoid opening a system context menu after a right click. Due to timing differences between operating systems, this too is not a preventable default behavior of auxclick
. Instead, this can be done by preventing the default behavior of the contextmenu
event.
Examples
In this example we define functions for two event handlers — onclick
and onauxclick
. The former changes the color of the button background, while the latter changes the button foreground (text) color. You also can see the two functions in action by trying the demo out with a multi-button mouse (see it live on GitHub; also see the source code).
JavaScript
let button = document.querySelector("button");
let html = document.querySelector("html");
function random(number) {
return Math.floor(Math.random() * number);
}
function randomColor() {
return `rgb(${random(255)} ${random(255)} ${random(255)})`;
}
button.onclick = () => {
button.style.backgroundColor = randomColor();
};
button.onauxclick = (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
button.style.color = randomColor();
};
button.oncontextmenu = (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
};
Notice that in addition to capturing the auxclick
event using onauxclick
, the contextmenu
event is also captured, and preventDefault()
called on that event, in order to prevent the context menu from popping up after the color change is applied.
HTML
<button><h1>Click me!</h1></button>
Note: If you are using a three-button mouse, you'll notice that the onauxclick
handler is run when any of the non-left mouse buttons are clicked (usually including any "special" buttons on gaming mice).
Specifications
Specification |
---|
UI Events # event-type-auxclick |
HTML Standard # handler-onauxclick |
Browser compatibility
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