File drag and drop
HTML Drag and Drop interfaces enable web applications to drag and drop files on a web page. This document describes how an application can accept one or more files that are dragged from the underlying platform's file manager and dropped on a web page.
The main steps to drag and drop are to define a drop zone (i.e. a target element for the file drop) and to define event handlers for the drop
, dragover
and dragend
events. These steps are described below, including example code snippets. The full source code is available in MDN's drag-and-drop repository (pull requests and/or issues are welcome).
Note: HTML drag and drop
defines two different APIs to support dragging and dropping files. One API is the DataTransfer
interface and the second API is the DataTransferItem
and DataTransferItemList
interfaces. This example illustrates the use of both APIs (and does not use any Gecko specific interfaces).
Define the drop zone
The target element of the drop
event needs an ondrop
global event handler. The following code snippet shows how this is done with a <div>
element:
<div id="drop_zone" ondrop="drop_handler(event);"> <strong><Drag one or more files to this Drop Zone ...</strong> </div>
Typically, an application will include a dragover
event handler on the drop target element and that handler will turn off the browser's default drag behavior. To add this handler, you need to include a ondragover
global event handler:
<div id="drop_zone" ondrop="drop_handler(event);" ondragover="dragover_handler(event);"> <strong><Drag one or more files to this Drop Zone ...</strong> </div>
Additionally, after a drag and drop operation has been completed, an application should remove the drag's data items (in this case one or more files). This cleanup is typically done when the dragend
event is fired. The ondrop
global event handler should be set on the drop target element:
<div id="drop_zone" ondrop="drop_handler(event);" ondragover="dragover_handler(event);" ondragend="dragend_handler(event);"> <strong><Drag one or more files to this Drop Zone ...</strong> </div>
Lastly, an application may want to style the drop target element to visually indicate the element is a drop zone. In this example, the drop target element uses the following styling:
drop_zone { border: 5px solid blue; width: 200px; height: 100px; }
Process the drop
The drop
event is fired when the user drops the file(s). In the following drop handler, if the browser supports DataTransferItemList
interface, the getAsFile()
method is used to access each file; otherwise the DataTransfer
interface's files
property is used to access each file.
This example shows how to write the name of each dragged file to the console. In a real application, an application may want to process a file using the File API
.
Note that in this example, any drag item that is not a file is ignored.
function drop_handler(ev) { console.log("Drop"); ev.preventDefault(); // If dropped items aren't files, reject them var dt = ev.dataTransfer; if (dt.items) { // Use DataTransferItemList interface to access the file(s) for (var i=0; i < dt.items.length; i++) { if (dt.items[i].kind == "file") { var f = dt.items[i].getAsFile(); console.log("... file[" + i + "].name = " + f.name); } } } else { // Use DataTransfer interface to access the file(s) for (var i=0; i < dt.files.length; i++) { console.log("... file[" + i + "].name = " + dt.files[i].name); } } }
Prevent the browser's default drag behavior
The following dragover
event handler calls preventDefault()
to turn off the browser's default drag and drop handler.
function dragover_handler(ev) { console.log("dragOver"); // Prevent default select and drag behavior ev.preventDefault(); }
Cleanup
The dragend
handler is fired when the drag operation ends (signaling the drop has occurred or the drag has been canceled). In the following handler, if the browser supports the DataTransferItemList
interface, the list's remove()
method is used to delete the file drag data; otherwise the DataTransfer
object's remove()
method is used to delete the data.
function dragend_handler(ev) { console.log("dragEnd"); // Remove all of the drag data var dt = ev.dataTransfer; if (dt.items) { // Use DataTransferItemList interface to remove the drag data for (var i = 0; i < dt.items.length; i++) { dt.items.remove(i); } } else { // Use DataTransfer interface to remove the drag data ev.dataTransfer.clearData(); } }
See also
License
© 2016 Mozilla Contributors
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-us/docs/web/api/html_drag_and_drop_api/file_drag_and_drop