Can you detect "dragging" in jQuery?

Question

On mousedown, start set the state, if the mousemove event is fired record it, finally on mouseup, check if the mouse moved. If it moved, we've been dragging. If we've not moved, it's a click.

var isDragging = false;
$("a")
.mousedown(function() {
    isDragging = false;
})
.mousemove(function() {
    isDragging = true;
 })
.mouseup(function() {
    var wasDragging = isDragging;
    isDragging = false;
    if (!wasDragging) {
        $("#throbble").toggle();
    }
});

Here's a demo: http://jsfiddle.net/W7tvD/1399/

For some reason, the above solutions were not working for me. I went with the following:

$('#container').on('mousedown', function(e) {
    $(this).data('p0', { x: e.pageX, y: e.pageY });
}).on('mouseup', function(e) {
    var p0 = $(this).data('p0'),
        p1 = { x: e.pageX, y: e.pageY },
        d = Math.sqrt(Math.pow(p1.x - p0.x, 2) + Math.pow(p1.y - p0.y, 2));

    if (d < 4) {
        alert('clicked');
    }
})

You can tweak the distance limit to whatever you please, or even take it all the way to zero.

With jQuery UI just do this!

$( "#draggable" ).draggable({
  start: function() {

  },
  drag: function() {

  },
  stop: function() {

  }
});

$(".draggable")
.mousedown(function(e){
    $(this).on("mousemove",function(e){
        var p1 = { x: e.pageX, y: e.pageY };
        var p0 = $(this).data("p0") || p1;
        console.log("dragging from x:" + p0.x + " y:" + p0.y + "to x:" + p1.x + " y:" + p1.y);
        $(this).data("p0", p1);
    });
})
.mouseup(function(){
    $(this).off("mousemove");
});

This solution uses the "on" and "off" functions to bind an unbind a mousemove event (bind and unbind are deprecated). You can also detect the change in mouse x and y positions between two mousemove events.

Try this: it shows when is 'dragged' state. ;) fiddle link

$(function() {
    var isDragging = false;
    $("#status").html("status:");
    $("a")
    .mousedown(function() {
        $("#status").html("status: DRAGGED");        
    })
    .mouseup(function() {
        $("#status").html("status: dropped");   
    });

    $("ul").sortable();
});

// here is how you can detect dragging in all four directions
var isDragging = false;
$("some DOM element").mousedown(function(e) {
    var previous_x_position = e.pageX;
    var previous_y_position = e.pageY;

    $(window).mousemove(function(event) {
        isDragging = true;
        var x_position = event.pageX;
        var y_position = event.pageY;

        if (previous_x_position < x_position) {
            alert('moving right');
        } else {
            alert('moving left');
        }
        if (previous_y_position < y_position) {
            alert('moving down');
        } else {
            alert('moving up');
        }
        $(window).unbind("mousemove");
    });
}).mouseup(function() {
    var wasDragging = isDragging;
    isDragging = false;
    $(window).unbind("mousemove");
});

Make sure you set the element's draggable attribute to false so you don't have side effects when listening to mouseup events:

<div class="thing" draggable="false">text</div>

Then, you can use jQuery:

$(function() {
  var pressed, pressX, pressY,
      dragged,
      offset = 3; // helps detect when the user really meant to drag

  $(document)
  .on('mousedown', '.thing', function(e) {
    pressX = e.pageX;
    pressY = e.pageY;
    pressed = true;
  })
  .on('mousemove', '.thing', function(e) {
    if (!pressed) return;
    dragged = Math.abs(e.pageX - pressX) > offset ||
              Math.abs(e.pageY - pressY) > offset;
  })
  .on('mouseup', function() {
    dragged && console.log('Thing dragged');
    pressed = dragged = false;
  });
});