jQuery get mouse position within an element

Question

I was hoping to craft a control where a user could click inside a div, then drag the mouse, then let up on the mouse in order to indicate how long they want something to be. (This is for a calendar control, so the user will be indicating the length, in time, of a certain event)

It looks like the best way to do this would be to register a "mousedown" event on the parent div that in turn registers a "mousemove" event on the div until a "mouseup" event is triggered. The "mousedown" and "mouseup" events will define the start and end of the time range and as I follow "mousemove" events, I can dynamically change the size of the range so that the user can see what they are doing. I based this off of how events are created in google calendar.

The issue I'm having is that the jQuery event seems to only provide reliable mouse coordinate information in reference to the whole page. Is there any way to discern what the coordinates are in reference to the parent element?

Edit:

Heres a picture of what I'm trying to do:

Answer 1

One way is to use the jQuery offset method to translate the event.pageX and event.pageY coordinates from the event into a mouse position relative to the parent. Here's an example for future reference:

$("#something").click(function(e){
   var parentOffset = $(this).parent().offset(); 
   //or $(this).offset(); if you really just want the current element's offset
   var relX = e.pageX - parentOffset.left;
   var relY = e.pageY - parentOffset.top;
});

Answer 2

To get the position of click relative to current clicked element
Use this code

$("#specialElement").click(function(e){
    var x = e.pageX - this.offsetLeft;
    var y = e.pageY - this.offsetTop;
}); 

Answer 3

I use this piece of code, its quite nice :)

    <script language="javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.1.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script language="javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
    $(".div_container").mousemove(function(e){
        var parentOffset = $(this).parent().offset();
        var relativeXPosition = (e.pageX - parentOffset.left); //offset -> method allows you to retrieve the current position of an element 'relative' to the document
        var relativeYPosition = (e.pageY - parentOffset.top);
        $("#header2").html("<p><strong>X-Position: </strong>"+relativeXPosition+" | <strong>Y-Position: </strong>"+relativeYPosition+"</p>")
    }).mouseout(function(){
        $("#header2").html("<p><strong>X-Position: </strong>"+relativeXPosition+" | <strong>Y-Position: </strong>"+relativeYPosition+"</p>")
    });
});
</script>

Answer 4

@AbdulRahim answer is almost correct. But I suggest the function below as substitute (for futher reference):

function getXY(evt, element) {
                var rect = element.getBoundingClientRect();
                var scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop?
                                document.documentElement.scrollTop:document.body.scrollTop;
                var scrollLeft = document.documentElement.scrollLeft?                   
                                document.documentElement.scrollLeft:document.body.scrollLeft;
                var elementLeft = rect.left+scrollLeft;  
                var elementTop = rect.top+scrollTop;

                x = evt.pageX-elementLeft;
                y = evt.pageY-elementTop;

                return {x:x, y:y};
            }




            $('#main-canvas').mousemove(function(e){
                var m=getXY(e, this);
                console.log(m.x, m.y);
            });

Answer 5

This solution supports all major browsers including IE. It also takes care of scrolling. First, it retrieves the position of the element relative to the page efficiently, and without using a recursive function. Then it gets the x and y of the mouse click relative to the page and does the subtraction to get the answer which is the position relative to the element (the element can be an image or div for example):

function getXY(evt) {
    var element = document.getElementById('elementId');  //replace elementId with your element's Id.
    var rect = element.getBoundingClientRect();
    var scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop?
                    document.documentElement.scrollTop:document.body.scrollTop;
    var scrollLeft = document.documentElement.scrollLeft?                   
                    document.documentElement.scrollLeft:document.body.scrollLeft;
    var elementLeft = rect.left+scrollLeft;  
    var elementTop = rect.top+scrollTop;

        if (document.all){ //detects using IE   
            x = event.clientX+scrollLeft-elementLeft; //event not evt because of IE
            y = event.clientY+scrollTop-elementTop;
        }
        else{
            x = evt.pageX-elementLeft;
            y = evt.pageY-elementTop;
    }

Answer 6

If you make your parent element be "position: relative", then it will be the "offset parent" for the stuff you're tracking mouse events over. Thus the jQuery "position()" will be relative to that.

Answer 7

Here is one that also gives you percent position of the point in case you need it. https://jsfiddle.net/Themezly/2etbhw01/

function ThzhotspotPosition(evt, el, hotspotsize, percent) {
  var left = el.offset().left;
  var top = el.offset().top;
  var hotspot = hotspotsize ? hotspotsize : 0;
  if (percent) {
    x = (evt.pageX - left - (hotspot / 2)) / el.outerWidth() * 100 + '%';
    y = (evt.pageY - top - (hotspot / 2)) / el.outerHeight() * 100 + '%';
  } else {
    x = (evt.pageX - left - (hotspot / 2));
    y = (evt.pageY - top - (hotspot / 2));
  }

  return {
    x: x,
    y: y
  };
}



$(function() {

  $('.box').click(function(e) {

    var hp = ThzhotspotPosition(e, $(this), 20, true); // true = percent | false or no attr = px

    var hotspot = $('<div class="hotspot">').css({
      left: hp.x,
      top: hp.y,
    });
    $(this).append(hotspot);
    $("span").text("X: " + hp.x + ", Y: " + hp.y);
  });


});

.box {
  width: 400px;
  height: 400px;
  background: #efefef;
  margin: 20px;
  padding: 20px;
  position: relative;
  top: 20px;
  left: 20px;
}

.hotspot {
  position: absolute;
  left: 0;
  top: 0;
  height: 20px;
  width: 20px;
  background: green;
  border-radius: 20px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="box">
  <p>Hotspot position is at: <span></span></p>
</div>

Answer 8

I would suggest this:

e.pageX - this.getBoundingClientRect().left