Name
HTMLElement.onmousedown — the handler invoked when the user presses a mouse button
Availability
JavaScript 1.2; HTML 4.0
Synopsis
<elementonmousedown="handler" ... >element.onmousedown
Description
The onmousedown property of an HTMLElement object
specifies an event handler function that is invoked when the user
presses a mouse button over element.
The initial value of this property is a function that contains the
JavaScript statements specified by the onmousedown
attribute of the HTML tag that defined the object. When an event
handler function is defined by an HTML attribute, it is executed in
the scope of element rather than in the
scope of the containing window.
In the Netscape 4 event model, the onmousedown
handler function is passed an Event object as an argument. In the IE
event model, no argument is passed, but the applicable Event object
is available as the event property of the Window
object that contains the element.
In Netscape, the Event.which property specifies
which mouse button was pressed. In IE, the
Event.button property specifies the button number.
See Also
Event, HTMLElement.onclick; Chapter 19; EventListener, EventTarget, and MouseEvent in the DOM reference section