Many methods used with createEvent, such as initCustomEvent, are deprecated. Use event constructors instead.
Creates an event of the type specified. The returned object should be first initialized and can then be passed to element.dispatchEvent.
Syntax
var event = document.createEvent(type);
eventis the created Event object.typeis a string that represents the type of event to be created. Possible event types include"UIEvents","MouseEvents","MutationEvents", and"HTMLEvents". See Notes section for details.
Example
// Create the event.
var event = document.createEvent('Event');
// Define that the event name is 'build'.
event.initEvent('build', true, true);
// Listen for the event.
elem.addEventListener('build', function (e) {
// e.target matches elem
}, false);
// target can be any Element or other EventTarget.
elem.dispatchEvent(event);
See also
Notes
Event type strings suitable for passing to createEvent are defined in event modules. Some event modules are defined in DOM Events specifications, some modules are defined in other specification (such as SVG), and some event types are Gecko-specific. See the table below for details.
To-do: add event names to the table too.
| Event Module | Event type to pass to createEvent |
Method to be used to initialize the event |
|---|---|---|
| DOM Level 2 Events | ||
| User Interface event module | "UIEvents" |
event.initUIEvent |
| Mouse event module | "MouseEvents" |
event.initMouseEvent |
| Mutation event module | "MutationEvents" |
event.initMutationEvent |
| HTML event module | "HTMLEvents" |
event.initEvent |
| DOM Level 3 Events | ||
| User Interface event module | "UIEvent", "UIEvents" |
event.initUIEvent |
| Mouse event module | "MouseEvent", "MouseEvents" |
event.initMouseEvent |
| Mutation event module | "MutationEvent", "MutationEvents" |
event.initMutationEvent |
| Mutation name event module (not implemented in Gecko as of June 2006) | "MutationNameEvent" |
event.initMutationNameEvent |
| Text event module | "TextEvent" (Gecko also supports "TextEvents") |
event.initTextEvent (not implemented) |
| Keyboard event module | "KeyboardEvent" (Gecko also supports "KeyEvents") |
event.initKeyEvent (Gecko-specific; the DOM 3 Events working draft uses initKeyboardEvent instead) |
| Custom event module | "CustomEvent" |
event.initCustomEvent |
| Basic events module | "Event" (Gecko also supports "Events") |
event.initEvent |
| SVG 1.1 Scripting | ||
| SVG | "SVGEvents" (Gecko also supports "SVGEvent") |
event.initEvent |
"SVGZoomEvents" (Gecko also supports "SVGZoomEvent") |
event.initUIEvent | |
| Other event types supported by Gecko | ||
| - | "MessageEvent" |
event.initMessageEvent |
"MouseScrollEvents", "PopupEvents" |
event.initMouseEvent | |
"PopupBlockedEvents" |
event.initPopupBlockedEvent | |
"XULCommandEvent", "XULCommandEvents" |
event.initCommandEvent | |
| Progress Events | "ProgressEvent" |
ProgressEvent.initProgressEvent()Deprecated since Gecko 22.0 |
| Animation Events | "AnimationEvent" (or "WebKitAnimationEvent" for WebKit/Blink-based browsers) |
AnimationEvent.initAnimationEvent()Deprecated since Gecko 23.0 |
| Transition Events | "TransitionEvent" (or "WebKitTransitionEvent" for WebKit/Blink-based browsers) |
TransitionEvent.initTransitionEvent()Deprecated since Gecko 23.0 |
The reason some events can be created using any of two event type strings is that DOM Level 3 Events changed the event type strings to be singular, while still supporting older plural names for backwards-compatibility.