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Element: mouseenter event

{{APIRef("UI Events")}} 

The mouseenter event is fired at an {{domxref("Element")}}  when a pointing device (usually a mouse) is initially moved so that its hotspot is within the element at which the event was fired.

Note that “moving into an element” refers to the element’s position in the DOM tree, not to its visual position. For example, if a child element is positioned so it is placed outside its parent, then moving into the child element will trigger mouseenter on the parent element, even though the pointer is still outside the bounds of the parent element.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like {{domxref("EventTarget.addEventListener", "addEventListener()")}} , or set an event handler property.

addEventListener("mouseenter", (event) => { })

onmouseenter = (event) => { }

Event type

A {{domxref("MouseEvent")}} . Inherits from {{domxref("UIEvent")}}  and {{domxref("Event")}} .

{{InheritanceDiagram("MouseEvent")}} 

Event properties

This interface also inherits properties of its parents, {{domxref("UIEvent")}}  and {{domxref("Event")}} .

Usage notes

Though similar to {{domxref("Element/mouseover_event", "mouseover")}} , mouseenter differs in that it doesn’t bubble and it isn’t sent to any descendants when the pointer is moved from one of its descendants’ physical space to its own physical space. Other than that, enter and over events for the same situation are dispatched at the same time, if appropriate.

Behavior of mouseenter events

This describes the mouseenter events received by each of four concentric divs with no padding or margin, so the events all happen at the same time: Mouseenter behavior diagram One mouseenter event is sent to each element of the hierarchy when entering them. Here 4 events are sent to the four elements of the hierarchy when the pointer reaches the text.

Behavior of mouseover events

Mouseover behavior diagram A single mouseover event is sent to the deepest element of the DOM tree, then it bubbles up the hierarchy until it is canceled by a handler or reaches the root.

With deep hierarchies, the number of mouseenter events sent can be quite huge and cause significant performance problems. In such cases, it is better to listen for mouseover events.

Combined with the corresponding mouseleave (which is fired at the element when the mouse exits its content area), the mouseenter event acts in a very similar way to the CSS {{cssxref(':hover')}}  pseudo-class.

Examples

The mouseover documentation has an example illustrating the difference between mouseover and mouseenter.

mouseenter

The following trivial example uses the mouseenter event to change the border on the div when the mouse enters the space allotted to it. It then adds an item to the list with the number of the mouseenter or mouseleave event.

HTML

<div id="mouseTarget">
  <ul id="unorderedList">
    <li>No events yet!</li>
  </ul>
</div>

CSS

Styling the div to make it more visible.

#mouseTarget {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  width: 15rem;
  border: 1px solid #333333;
}

JavaScript

let enterEventCount = 0;
let leaveEventCount = 0;
const mouseTarget = document.getElementById("mouseTarget");
const unorderedList = document.getElementById("unorderedList");

mouseTarget.addEventListener("mouseenter", (e) => {
  mouseTarget.style.border = "5px dotted orange";
  enterEventCount++;
  addListItem(`This is mouseenter event ${enterEventCount}.`);
});

mouseTarget.addEventListener("mouseleave", (e) => {
  mouseTarget.style.border = "1px solid #333333";
  leaveEventCount++;
  addListItem(`This is mouseleave event ${leaveEventCount}.`);
});

function addListItem(text) {
  // Create a new text node using the supplied text
  const newTextNode = document.createTextNode(text);

  // Create a new li element
  const newListItem = document.createElement("li");

  // Add the text node to the li element
  newListItem.appendChild(newTextNode);

  // Add the newly created list item to list
  unorderedList.appendChild(newListItem);
}

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample('mouseenter')}} 

Specifications

{{Specifications}} 

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}} 

See also

In this article

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