jQuery Touch Events

This jQuery plugin provides additional touch events that can be used when developing for mobile devices. The events are also compatible with desktop browsers to ensure ultimate compatibility for your projects. This plugin was created by Ben Major, but I have tweaked it to be compatible with browserify, allowing you to "require" it in your app.

As explained, the events are each triggered by native touch events, or alternatively by click events. The plugin automatically detects whether the user's device is touch compatible, and will use the correct native events whenever required. It is hoped that these events will help to aid single-environment development with jQuery for mobile web app development.

Table of Contents:

1. Installation
2. Usage
3. Events
4. Callback Data
5. Defining Thresholds
6. Utility Functions
7. License

1. Installation:

jQuery Touch Events, as the name suggests, requires only the jQuery library (version 1.7+) to run. Simply require and run 'jquery-touch-events' after jQuery has been loaded.

var $ = require('jquery');
var loadTouchEvents = require('jquery-touch-events');
loadTouchEvents($);

2. Usage:

All of the events outlined above have been written using jQuery's event.special object, and so can be used in conjunction with jQuery's event handling functions, as well as shortcut wrappers. As a result, all of the events that are supported by this library may be handled using any of jQuery's own event-specific methods, such as bind(), on(), live() (for legacy) and one().

The following code snippets showcase some basic usage with jQuery:

Binding a tap event to an element:

$('#myElement').bind('tap', function(e) {
    console.log('User tapped #myElement');
});

Using with .on() and .live():

$('#myElement').live('tap', function(e) {
    console.log('User tapped #myElement');
});

$('#myElement').on('tap', function(e) {
    console.log('User tapped #myElement');
});

Triggering the event:

$('#myElement').trigger('tap');

Removing the event with .off(), .die() and .unbind():

$('#myElement').off('tap', hander);

$('#myElement').die('tap', hander);

$('#myElement').unbind('tap', hander);

Using method wrapper:

$('#myElement').tap(function(e) {
    console.log('User tapped #myElement');
});

Method chaining:
Chaining has also been preserved, so you can easily use these events in conjuction with other jQuery functions, or attach multiple events in a single, chained LOC:

$('#myElement').tap(function() {
    console.log('tap');
}).hold(function() {
    console.log('hold');
});

3. The Events:

• tapstart
  Fired as soon as the user begins touching an element (or clicking, for desktop environments).
• tapend
  Fired after the user releases their finger from the target element (or releases their mouse button on desktops).
• tapmove
  Fired as soon as the user begins moving their finger on an element (or moving their mouse, for desktop environments).
• tap
  This event is fired whenever the user taps and releases their finger on the target element.
• hold
  This event is triggered whenever the user taps and holds on the target element for at least 750 milliseconds.
• swipe
  This is called whenever the user swipes their finger on the target element. It is not direction-dependent, and is fired regardless of the direction the user swiped.
• swipeup
  Similar to swipe, except only called when the user swipes their finger in an upward direction on the target element (i.e. bottom to top)
• swiperight
  Similar to swipe, but triggered only when the user swipes their finger left to right on the target element.
• swipedown
  Similar to swipe, but triggered only when the user swipes their finger top to bottom on the target element.
• swipeleft
  Similar to swipe, but triggered only when the user swipes their finger from right to left.
• swipeend
  The swipeend event is trigged whenever a swipe event ends (i.e. the user finished moving their finger / cursor and released it). This event should be used to handle custom functions, since it will be triggered only when the swipe ends, rather than triggering immediately when the threshold has been met.
• scrollstart
  Triggered as soon as scrolling begins on the target element.
• scrollend
  Triggered as soon as scrolling is stopped on the target element.
• orientationchange
  This event is triggered when the orientation of the device is changed. Please note that it uses throttling for non-mobile devices, or devices which do not support the native orientationchange event. In the latter instance, a detection of the viewport size change occurs.

4. Callback Data:

Each event now features a second argument that can be passed to the specified callback function. This argument includes some basic data relating specifically to the event, and can be accessed as a standard JavaScript object. To hook into this parameter, you should use the following code:

$(element).swipeend(function(e, touch) {  });

Given the example above, touch will now contain some basic data that can be accessed through touch.. The first argument will represent the last native event that occurred (the names used for these two arguments is irrelevant).

Each event provides different callback data. The following shows the numerous data that are passed back to the callback function inside the second parameter:

tapstart, tapend, tapmove, tap:

offset - object containing the X and Y positions of the event relative to the element to which is was bound. Accessed through offset.x and offset.y respectively.

position - object containing the X and Y positions of the event relative to the screen. Accessed through position.x and position.y respectively.

target - the jQuery object from which the event was triggered.

time - JavaScript timestamp the event occurred (milliseconds since the Unix Epoch)

hold:

duration: the time in milliseconds that the user tapped for.

endOffset - object containing the X and Y positions of the end event (i.e. when the user released their finger or mouse) relative to the element to which the event was bound. Accessed through endOffset.x and endOffset.y respectively.

endPosition - object containing the X and Y positions of the end event (i.e. when the user released their finger or mouse) relative to the screen. Accessed through endPosition.x and endPosition.y respectively.

endTime - JavaScript timestamp the hold was triggered (milliseconds since the Unix Epoch). This will ordinarily be equal to the startTime + hold threshold.

startOffset - object containing the X and Y positions of the start event (i.e. when the user pressed their finger or mouse) relative to the element to which the event was bound. Accessed through endOffset.x and endOffset.y respectively.

startPosition - object containing the X and Y positions of the start event (i.e. when the user pressed their finger or mouse) relative to the screen. Accessed through endPosition.x and endPosition.y respectively.

startTime - JavaScript timestamp the hold started (milliseconds since the Unix Epoch).

target - the jQuery object from which the event was triggered.

swipe, swipeup, swiperight, swipedown, swipeleft, swipeend:

direction - string representing the swipe direction (either up, right, down or left).

duration - the time in milliseconds over which the swipe took place (for best results, use with swipeend only, as this will typically be equal to the defined swipe-threshold.

xAmount - number of pixels the swipe occupied on the X-axis (returned regardless of direction).

yAmount - number of pixels the swipe occupied on the Y-axis (returned regardless of direction).

startEvent - Object containing the same data as a tap event, but captured when swiping begins.

endEvent - Object containing the same data as a tap event, but captured when swiping is complete.

5. Defining Thresholds:

You can also define custom thresholds to be used for swipe events (swipeup, swiperight, swipedown and swipeleft) to prevent interference with scrolling and other events. To do so, simply assign a data-xthreshold or date-ythreshold to the target element as follows:

<div id="mySwiper" data-xthreshold="500"></div>

The value you define is the difference in pixels that the user must move before the event is triggered on the target element. If no threshold is defined, a default of 50px will be used.

data-xthreshold defines the horizontal threshold.

data-ythreshold defines the vertical threshold.

6. Utility Functions:

In addition to the numerous additional events that are provided, the library also includes a number of utility functions that can be used to further leverage the power of native events within your website or application. These utility functions can be used for unifying basic events, such as tapstart or mousedown.

The following utility functions are provided (each function is registered to the jQuery namespace, and should be called with $.funcName() (or jQuery.funcName() for compatibility):

• isTouchCapable():
  Returns true or false depending upon whether touch events are supported.
• getStartEvent():
  Returns touchstart for touch-enabled devices, or mousedown for standard environments.
• getEndEvent():
  Returns touchend for touch-enabled devices, or mouseup for standard environments.
• getMoveEvent():
  Returns touchmove for touch-enabled devices, or mousemove for standard environments.
• getTapEvent():
  Returns tap for touch-enabled devices, or click for standard environments.
• getScrollEvent():
  Returns touchmove for touch-enabled devices, or scroll for standard environments. Caution should be exercised when using this function, since some mobile browsers will correctly bind to scroll as well as touchmove.

7. License:

Licensed under the MIT License:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.