Events are things that happen while using the computer. Every mouse move or click, every keypress is an event. Some are combinations. Moving the mouse over the little x in the corner of the window is a mouseover, clicking it is a mouse down, mouse up event and a click event. As the window closes, that is a window close event. Not all events apply to all things in the browser. Only the window has an onClose event. For the events that are relevant to an object on the page, you can connect JavaScript code to it by using the event name as an attribute on the tag that created the object. For example, the onLoad event occurs when the page is loaded by the browser. You can put this on the body tag like this.
Here is a table of mouse events. This and the following tables of events are taken from http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/jsevents1/jsevents1.html
Mouse Event | Description |
onmousedown | A mouse button has been pressed |
onmousemove | The mouse has been moved |
onmouseout | The mouse pointer has left an element |
onmouseover | The mouse pointer has entered an element |
onmouseup | A mouse button has been released |
onclick | A mouse button has been clicked |
ondblclick | A mouse button has been double-clicked (clicked twice rapidly) |
The keyboard also creates events
Keyboard Event | Description |
onkeydown | A key has been pressed |
onkeypress | onkeydown followed by onkeyup |
onkeyup | A key has been released |
There are a number of events that are more indirect.
Event | Description |
onblur | An element loses focus |
onerror | An error occurs |
onfocus | An element gains focus |
onload | The document has completely loaded |
onreset | A form reset command is issued |
onscroll | The document is scrolled |
onselect | The selection of element has changed |
onsubmit | A form submit command is issued |