Element: contextmenu event
The contextmenu
event fires when the user attempts to open a context menu. This event is typically triggered by clicking the right mouse button, or by pressing the context menu key.
In the latter case, the context menu is displayed at the bottom left of the focused element, unless the element is a tree, in which case the context menu is displayed at the bottom left of the current row.
Any right-click event that is not disabled (by calling the click event's preventDefault()
method) will result in a contextmenu
event being fired at the targeted element. One exception to this is that in Firefox, if the user holds down the Shift key while right-clicking, then the context menu will be shown without a contextmenu
event being fired.
Syntax
Use the event name in methods like addEventListener()
, or set an event handler property.
js
addEventListener("contextmenu", (event) => {});
oncontextmenu = (event) => {};
Event type
A MouseEvent
. Inherits from Event
.
Event properties
This interface also inherits properties of its parents, UIEvent
and Event
.
MouseEvent.altKey
Read only-
Returns
true
if the alt key was down when the mouse event was fired. -
The button number that was pressed (if applicable) when the mouse event was fired.
-
The buttons being pressed (if any) when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.clientX
Read only-
The X coordinate of the mouse pointer in local (DOM content) coordinates.
MouseEvent.clientY
Read only-
The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer in local (DOM content) coordinates.
MouseEvent.ctrlKey
Read only-
Returns
true
if the control key was down when the mouse event was fired. MouseEvent.layerX
Non-standard Read only-
Returns the horizontal coordinate of the event relative to the current layer.
MouseEvent.layerY
Non-standard Read only-
Returns the vertical coordinate of the event relative to the current layer.
MouseEvent.metaKey
Read only-
Returns
true
if the meta key was down when the mouse event was fired. MouseEvent.movementX
Read only-
The X coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the last
mousemove
event. MouseEvent.movementY
Read only-
The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the last
mousemove
event. MouseEvent.offsetX
Read only-
The X coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the padding edge of the target node.
MouseEvent.offsetY
Read only-
The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the padding edge of the target node.
MouseEvent.pageX
Read only-
The X coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the whole document.
MouseEvent.pageY
Read only-
The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the whole document.
-
The secondary target for the event, if there is one.
MouseEvent.screenX
Read only-
The X coordinate of the mouse pointer in global (screen) coordinates.
MouseEvent.screenY
Read only-
The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer in global (screen) coordinates.
MouseEvent.shiftKey
Read only-
Returns
true
if the shift key was down when the mouse event was fired. MouseEvent.mozInputSource
Non-standard Read only-
The type of device that generated the event (one of the
MOZ_SOURCE_*
constants). This lets you, for example, determine whether a mouse event was generated by an actual mouse or by a touch event (which might affect the degree of accuracy with which you interpret the coordinates associated with the event). MouseEvent.webkitForce
Non-standard Read only-
The amount of pressure applied when clicking.
MouseEvent.x
Read only-
Alias for
MouseEvent.clientX
. MouseEvent.y
Read only-
Alias for
MouseEvent.clientY
.
Examples
Canceling the contextmenu
event
In this example, the default action of the contextmenu
event is canceled using preventDefault()
when the contextmenu
event is fired at the first paragraph. As a result, the first paragraph will do nothing when right-clicked, while the second paragraph will show the standard context menu offered by your browser.
Note that in Firefox, if you hold down the Shift key while right-clicking, then the context menu is shown without the contextmenu
event being fired, so canceling the event does not stop the context menu from being shown.
HTML
html
<p id="noContextMenu">The context menu has been disabled on this paragraph.</p>
<p>But it has not been disabled on this one.</p>
JavaScript
js
const noContext = document.getElementById("noContextMenu");
noContext.addEventListener("contextmenu", (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
});
Result
Specifications
Specification |
---|
UI Events # event-type-contextmenu |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser