Resolving Click and Mouse Down Event Conflict in Javascript

Resolve Click and Mouse Down Event Conflict in Javascript - A Troubleshooting Guide

In a recent project, we encountered an issue when working with a module that required two event handlers—onClick and onMouseDown—on a same div. The goal was to move the div during mouseDown and mouseMove events while triggering an alert box on a click. However, these events conflicted with each other, causing unexpected behavior.

Previous Approach:

Initially, we used a single variable, isMouseDown, to handle both dragging and clicking events:

Javascript

let isMouseDown = false;
const card = document.getElementById("card");
card.addEventListener("click", () => {
  alert("Are you sure? You want to redirect to another page?");
});
card.addEventListener("mousedown", () => {
  isMouseDown = true;
});
card.addEventListener("mouseup", () => {
  isMouseDown = false;
});
card.addEventListener("mousemove", (event) => {
  if (isMouseDown) {
    isDragging = true;
    // Code to move your element around.
  }
});

Resolving the Conflict

To resolve the confclit betweeen click and mousedown/move we’to manage one more variable isDragging to differentiate between dragging and clicking actions. We modified the event handlers accordingly:

The proposed solution:

let isMouseDown = false;
let isDragging = false;
const card = document.getElementById("card");
card.addEventListener("click", () => {
  if (!isDragging) alert("Are you sure? You want to redirect to another page?");
});
card.addEventListener("mousedown", () => {
  isDragging = false;
  isMouseDown = true;
});
card.addEventListener("mouseup", () => {
  isMouseDown = false;
});
card.addEventListener("mousemove", (event) => {
  if (isMouseDown) {
    isDragging = true;
    // Code to move your element around.
  }
});

👨‍💻 Happy Coding!!