jQuery: mousemove event - left, right within element

Question

I want to get mouse coords of a div, like this:

$("#box").mousemove(function(e){
var x = e.pageX - this.offsetLeft;
var y = e.pageY - this.offsetTop;

document.getElementById("coords").innerHTML = x + ", " + y; });

But I also want to be able to tell if the cursor was moved to left or right; I know I just have to compare current mouse position with previous one, but I have no idea how to do it in this case.

Any help appreciated. Thank you

Answer 1

The jquery code to get the mouse position is the following

jQuery(document).ready(function(){

   $(document).mousemove(function(e){
      $('#status').html(e.pageX +', '+ e.pageY);
   }); 
})

Obviously you must have a div called "status"

<div id="status">0, 0</div>

To check if the cursor is moving to the left or to the right you're right, you must store the previous position and then compare it with the new.

Here I wrote you the complete example:

http://jsfiddle.net/cB9Wq/

_ EDIT :

If you need to get the coords inside a div you need to know also the position of the div:

$(".div_container").mousemove(function(e){
        var relativeXPosition = (e.pageX - this.offsetLeft); //offset -> method allows you to retrieve the current position of an element 'relative' to the document
        var relativeYPosition = (e.pageY - this.offsetTop);
        $("#header").html("<p><strong>X-Position: </strong>"+relativeXPosition+" | <strong>Y-Position: </strong>"+relativeYPosition+"</p>")
    }).mouseout(function(){
        $("#header").html("<p>Move mouse on the below blue div container! :)</p>")
    });

To check if the mouse goes to the left or to the right, I used this sintax:

xPrev<e.pageX ? $('#lr').html("right") : $('#lr').html("left");
xPrev=e.pageX;

NB: This is the equivalent to:

if(xPrev<e.pageX) { 
   $('#lr').html("right"); 
}
else {
   $('#lr').html("left"); 
}
xPrev=e.pageX;

Here you have the working example: http://jsfiddle.net/cB9Wq/2/

Answer 2

You can use the following solution:

var plotSliderLastPostion = 0; //Placed outside the scope of function (fxp like private member)

slider.addEventListener(EVENT.MOUSE_MOVE, function(e){
var relativePlotBoxPositionX = e.clientX - rect.left;
 //CHECK THAT CURSOR IS MOVING RIGHT OR LEFT
                    if(relativePlotBoxPositionX > plotSliderLastPostion) {
                        console.log("right");
                        plotSliderLastPostion = relativePlotBoxPositionX;
                    }
                    else {
                        console.log("left");
                        plotSliderLastPostion = relativePlotBoxPositionX;
                    }
  }, true);