9. Handling Events

Events are actions that the user performs while visiting your page. When the browser detects an event, such as a mouse click or a key press, it can trigger JavaScript objects associated with that event, called event handlers. In most of the previous chapters in this book, you’ve seen examples of how event handlers are used. But event handling is such an important technique to understand—and it encompasses virtually all of your pages’ interaction with the user—that it deserves its own chapter.

In this chapter, you’ll see how to use event handlers to work with windows, capture mouse movements and clicks, deal with form events, and react when the user presses keys on the keyboard.

Get JavaScript and Ajax for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, Seventh Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.