Represents the state of an event, such as the element in which the event occurred, the state of the keyboard keys, the location of the mouse, and the state of the mouse buttons.

Members Table

The following table lists the members exposed by the event object.

Attributes/Properties

Attribute	Property	Description
	Abstract	Gets the Abstract content of the entry banner in an Advanced Stream Redirector (ASX) file by using the event object.
	altKey	Retrieves a value that indicates the state of the ALT key.
	altLeft	Retrieves a value that indicates the state of the left ALT key.
	Banner	Gets the Banner content of an entry in an ASX file using the event object.
	button	Sets or retrieves the mouse button pressed by the user.
	cancelBubble	Sets or retrieves whether the current event should bubble up the hierarchy of event handlers.
	clientX	Sets or retrieves the x-coordinate of the mouse pointer's position relative to the client area of the window, excluding window decorations and scroll bars.
	clientY	Sets or retrieves the y-coordinate of the mouse pointer's position relative to the client area of the window, excluding window decorations and scroll bars.
	constructor	Returns a reference to the constructor of an object.
	contentOverflow	Retrieves a value that indicates whether the document contains additional content after processing the current LayoutRect object.
	ctrlKey	Sets or retrieves the state of the CTRL key.
	ctrlLeft	Sets or retrieves the state of the left CTRL key.
	data	Sets or retrieves the body of the onmessage request.
	dataFld	Sets or retrieves the data column affected by the oncellchange event.
fromElement	fromElement	Sets or retrieves the object from which activation or the mouse pointer is exiting during the event.
	keyCode	Sets or retrieves the Unicode key code associated with the key that caused the event.
	MoreInfo	Gets the MoreInfo content of an entry banner in an ASX file through the event object.
	nextPage	Retrieves the position of the next page within a print template.
	offsetX	Sets or retrieves the x-coordinate of the mouse pointer's position relative to the object firing the event.
	offsetY	Sets or retrieves the y-coordinate of the mouse pointer's position relative to the object firing the event.
	origin	Sets or retrieves the scheme, hostname, and port of the document that fired the onmessage event.
	propertyName	Sets or retrieves the name of the property that changes on the object.
	qualifier	Sets or retrieves the name of the data member provided by a data source object.
	reason	Sets or retrieves the result of the data transfer for a data source object.
	recordset	Sets or retrieves from a data source object a reference to the default record set.
	repeat	Retrieves whether the onkeydown event is being repeated.
	returnValue	Sets or retrieves the return value from the event.
	saveType	Retrieves the clipboard type when oncontentsave fires.
	screenX	Sets or retrieves the x-coordinate of the mouse pointer's position relative to the user's screen.
	screenY	Sets or retrieves the y-coordinate of the mouse pointer's position relative to the user's screen.
	shiftKey	Retrieves the state of the SHIFT key.
	shiftLeft	Retrieves the state of the left SHIFT key.
	source	Retrieves the source window object of the onmessage event.
	srcElement	Sets or retrieves the object that fired the event.
	srcFilter	Sets or retrieves the filter object that caused the onfilterchange event to fire.
	srcUrn	Retrieves the Uniform Resource Name (URN) of the behavior that fired the event.
	toElement	Sets or retrieves a reference to the object toward which the user is moving the mouse pointer.
	type	Sets or retrieves the event name from the event object.
	url	Sets or retrieves the fully qualified URL of the document that fired the event.
	userName	Retrieves the sFriendlyName parameter that is passed to the useService method.
	wheelDelta	Retrieves the distance and direction the wheel button has rolled.
	x	Sets or retrieves the x-coordinate (in pixels) of the mouse pointer's offset from the closest relatively positioned parent element of the element that fired the event.
	y	Sets or retrieves the y-coordinate (in pixels) of the mouse pointer's offset from the closest relatively positioned parent element of the element that fired the event.

Collections

Collection	Description
bookmarks	Returns a collection of Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) bookmarks tied to the rows affected by the current event.
boundElements	Returns a collection of all elements on the page bound to a data set.

Objects

Object	Description
dataTransfer	Provides access to predefined clipboard formats for use in drag-and-drop operations.

Prototypes

Object	Description
Event Constructor	Defines the properties and methods inherited by objects in the Event Constructor prototype chain.

Remarks

The event object is available only during an event—that is, you can use it in event handlers but not in other code.

Although all event properties are available to all event objects, some properties might not have meaningful values during some events. For example, the fromElement and toElement properties are meaningful only when processing the onmouseover and onmouseout events.

In Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), you must access the event object through the window object.

Several of the properties that apply to this object are not writable unless this object has been created using the createEventObject method. The following is a list of these properties: altKey, altLeft, button, clientX, clientY, ctrlKey, ctrlLeft, dataFld, offsetX, offsetY, propertyName, qualifier, reason, repeat, screenX, screenY, shiftKey, shiftLeft, srcUrn, type, x, and y.

Examples

This example uses the event object to check whether the user clicked the mouse within a link, and to prevent the link from being navigated if the SHIFT key is down.

<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>Cancels Links</TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript">
function cancelLink() {
    if (window.event.srcElement.tagName == "A" && window.event.shiftKey) 
        window.event.returnValue = false;
}
</SCRIPT>
<BODY onclick="cancelLink()">

This example displays the current mouse position in the browser's status window.

<BODY onmousemove="window.status = 'X=' +  window.event.x + ' Y=' 
    + window.event.y">

Standards Information

This object is defined in World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 .

Applies To

window