Introduction to Events
20 January, 2023
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What are JavaScript events?
JavaScript events are actions or occurrences in the browser, such as a user clicking on a button, a page finishing loading, or an updated element. These events can be handled by JavaScript code, allowing you to create interactive and dynamic web pages.
There are many different types of events in JavaScript, such as mouse events (click, mouseover, etc.), keyboard events (keypress, keydown, etc.), and form events (submit, change, etc.).
To handle an event, you can assign an event listener to an element. An event listener is a JavaScript function that will be called when the specified event occurs on the element.
For example, to handle a click event on a button element, you could do something like this:
// Get the button element
var button = document.getElementById("myButton");
// Attach an event listener to the button
button.addEventListener("click", function() {
// Code to be executed when the button is clicked
});This code attaches an event listener to the button element, which listens for the "click" event. When the button is clicked, the function passed to the addEventListener() method will be executed.
You can also use the event object, passed as an argument to the event listener function, to get more information about the event, such as the target element and the type of event.
button.addEventListener("click", function(event) {
console.log(event.target); //log the button element
console.log(event.type); //log the event type 'click'
});It's also possible to remove the event listener as well.
button.removeEventListener("click", myFunction);It's important to know that Event Listeners can be added to all HTML elements, not only buttons, but you can also add event listeners for bubbling and capturing.
There are other ways to handle events in JavaScript, such as using the on prefix. Still, the addEventListener method is the most widely supported and recommended way to handle events in modern web development.
