How to get mouse position in jQuery without mouse-events?

104
votes

I would like to get current mouse position but I don't want to use:

$(document).bind('mousemove',function(e){ 
        $("#log").text("e.pageX: " + e.pageX + ", e.pageY: " + e.pageY); 
});

because I just need to get the position and process the information

7
jquerymouseposition
.pageX and .pageY can be read off of any event, not just .mousemove(). For example, perhaps you want to know exactly where a user clicked inside a particular div: Here's an example where we listen for a click event inside a particular div called #special. ..... docs.jquery.com/… – Haim Evgi
this may also help you to get the mouse pointer locations for responsive sites. kvcodes.com/2014/03/… – Kvvaradha

7 Answers

157
votes

I don't believe there's a way to query the mouse position, but you can use a mousemove handler that just stores the information away, so you can query the stored information.

jQuery(function($) {
    var currentMousePos = { x: -1, y: -1 };
    $(document).mousemove(function(event) {
        currentMousePos.x = event.pageX;
        currentMousePos.y = event.pageY;
    });

    // ELSEWHERE, your code that needs to know the mouse position without an event
    if (currentMousePos.x < 10) {
        // ....
    }
});

But almost all code, other than setTimeout code and such, runs in response to an event, and most events provide the mouse position. So your code that needs to know where the mouse is probably already has access to that information...

26
votes

You can't read mouse position in jQuery without using an event. Note firstly that the event.pageX and event.pageY properties exists on any event, so you could do:

$('#myEl').click(function(e) {
    console.log(e.pageX);
});

Your other option is to use a closure to give your whole code access to a variable that is updated by a mousemove handler:

var mouseX, mouseY;
$(document).mousemove(function(e) {
    mouseX = e.pageX;
    mouseY = e.pageY;
}).mouseover(); // call the handler immediately

// do something with mouseX and mouseY
11
votes

I used this method:

$(document).mousemove(function(e) {
    window.x = e.pageX;
    window.y = e.pageY;
});

function show_popup(str) {
    $("#popup_content").html(str);
    $("#popup").fadeIn("fast");
    $("#popup").css("top", y);
    $("#popup").css("left", x);
}

In this way I'll always have the distance from the top saved in y and the distance from the left saved in x.

6
votes

Moreover, mousemove events are not triggered if you perform drag'n'drop over a browser window. To track mouse coordinates during drag'n'drop you should attach handler for document.ondragover event and use it's originalEvent property.

Example:

var globalDragOver = function (e)
{
    var original = e.originalEvent;
    if (original)
    {
        window.x = original.pageX;
        window.y = original.pageY;
    }
}
2
votes

use window.event - it contains last event and as any event contains pageX, pageY etc. Works for Chrome, Safari, IE but not FF.

0
votes
var CurrentMouseXPostion;
var CurrentMouseYPostion;

$(document).mousemove(function(event) {
    CurrentMouseXPostion = event.pageX;
    CurrentMouseYPostion = event.pageY;
});

Make an eventListener on the main object , in my case the document object, to get the mouse coords every frame and store them in global variables, and like that you can read mouse Y & Z whenever youlike , wherever you like.

-1
votes

I came across this, tot it would be nice to share...

What do you guys think?

$(document).ready(function() {
  window.mousemove = function(e) {
    p = $(e).position();  //remember $(e) - could be any html tag also.. 
    left = e.left;        //retrieving the left position of the div... 
    top = e.top;          //get the top position of the div... 
  }
});

and boom, there we have it..