In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about JavaScript’s drag and drop API — how it works, concerns, best practices, and more!
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Show Notes
04:45 - What is it?
- Drag and drop is really for desktop apps
- You can drag and drop anything from any browser to any browser
- The important thing here is that this is a set of browser standards that allow different apps to communicate
07:50 - How to implement
- Make an element draggable
- Listen on elements for drag events
- The events bubble up, so you can listen on the parent element as items are added/removed
09:06 - DataTransfer API
- You can store anything you want in it
- getData / setData API
- Reference strings
11:35 - Accepting drops
- When you dragOver, you need to preventDefault()
- Calling the preventDefault() method during both a dragEnter and dragOver event will indicate that a drop is allowed at that location
13:01 - Drop Image
16:00 - Drop Effect
- What does it look like when you drop it? Does it go back?
- dataTransfer.effectAllowed
- e.dataTransfer.setDragImage(nothing, 0, 0);
18:02 - Security concerns
20:34 - Shortcomings:
- Edge cases out the WAZOO
- Margin caused dragout events
- Lots of if statements
- It’s up to you to do EVERYTHING
- CSS, classes, hover styles, etc.
- Accessibility
- Inaccessible by default, unless using mouse keys
- Have to announce everything
- Mobile
26:14 - Lbs
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