SVG content can be interactive (i.e., responsive to user-initiated events) by utilizing the following features in the SVG language:
This chapter describes:
Related information can be found in other chapters:
The following aspects of SVG are affected by events:
The following table lists all of the events which are recognized and supported in SVG. The Event name in the first column is the name to use within SVG's animation elements to define the events which can start or end animations. The DOM2 name in the second column is the name to use when defining DOM 2 event listeners ([DOM2EVENTS], section 1.3). The Event attribute name in the fourth column contains the corresponding name of the event attributes that can be attached to elements in the SVG language.
Requirements in the table on whether an event of a given type bubbles or is cancelable apply only to events that are created and dispatched by the user agent. Events of those types created from script using the createEvent method on the DocumentEvent interface can be made to bubble or be cancelable with the initEvent method.
| Event name and description | DOM2 name | DOM2 category | Event attribute name |
|---|---|---|---|
focusin Occurs when an element receives focus, such as when a ‘text’ becomes selected. | DOMFocusIn | UIEvent | onfocusin |
focusout Occurs when an element loses focus, such as when a ‘text’ becomes unselected. | DOMFocusOut | UIEvent | onfocusout |
activate Occurs when an element is activated, for instance, through a mouse click or a keypress. A numerical argument is provided to give an indication of the type of activation that occurs: 1 for a simple activation (e.g. a simple click or Enter), 2 for hyperactivation (for instance a double click or Shift Enter). | DOMActivate | UIEvent | onactivate |
click Occurs when the pointing device button is clicked over
an element. A click is defined as a mousedown and mouseup
over the same screen location. The sequence of these events
is: | (same) | MouseEvent | onclick |
mousedown Occurs when the pointing device button is pressed over an element. | (same) | MouseEvent | onmousedown |
mouseup Occurs when the pointing device button is released over an element. | (same) | MouseEvent | onmouseup |
mouseover Occurs when the pointing device is moved onto an element. | (same) | MouseEvent | onmouseover |
mousemove Occurs when the pointing device is moved while it is over an element. | (same) | MouseEvent | onmousemove |
mouseout Occurs when the pointing device is moved away from an element. | (same) | MouseEvent | onmouseout |
DOMSubtreeModified This is a general event for notification of all changes to the document. It can be used instead of the more specific events listed below. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
DOMNodeInserted Fired when a node has been added as a child of another node. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
DOMNodeRemoved Fired when a node is being removed from another node. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
DOMNodeRemovedFromDocument Fired when a node is being removed from a document, either through direct removal of the Node or removal of a subtree in which it is contained. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
DOMNodeInsertedIntoDocument Fired when a node is being inserted into a document, either through direct insertion of the Node or insertion of a subtree in which it is contained. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
DOMAttrModified Fired after an attribute has been modified on a node. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
DOMCharacterDataModified Fired after CharacterData within a node has been modified but the node itself has not been inserted or deleted. (The normative definition of this event is the description in the DOM2 specification.) | (same) | MutationEvent | none |
SVGLoad The event is triggered at the point at which the user agent has fully parsed the element and its descendants and is ready to act appropriately upon that element, such as being ready to render the element to the target device. Referenced external resources that are required must be loaded, parsed and ready to render before the event is triggered. Optional external resources are not required to be ready for the event to be triggered. SVGLoad events do not bubble and are not cancelable. | (same) | none | onload |
SVGUnload Only applicable to outermost svg elements. The unload event occurs when the DOM implementation removes a document from a window or frame. SVGUnload events do not bubble and are not cancelable. | (same) | none | onunload |
SVGAbort The abort event occurs when page loading is stopped before an element has been allowed to load completely. SVGAbort events bubble but are not cancelable. | (same) | none | onabort |
SVGError The error event occurs when an element does not load properly or when an error occurs during script execution. SVGError events bubble but are not cancelable. | (same) | none | onerror |
SVGResize Occurs when a document view is being resized. This event is only applicable to outermost svg elements and is dispatched after the resize operation has taken place. The target of the event is the ‘svg’ element. SVGResize events bubble but are not cancelable. | (same) | none | onresize |
SVGScroll Occurs when a document view is being shifted along the X or Y or both axis, either through a direct user interaction or any change on the currentTranslate property available on SVGSVGElement interface. This event is only applicable to outermost svg elements and is dispatched after the shift modification has taken place. The target of the event is the ‘svg’ element. SVGScroll events bubble but are not cancelable. | (same) | none | onscroll |
SVGZoom Occurs when the zoom level of a document view is being changed, either through a direct user interaction or any change to the currentScale property available on SVGSVGElement interface. This event is only applicable to outermost svg elements and is dispatched after the zoom level modification has taken place. The target of the event is the ‘svg’ element. SVGZoom events bubble but are not cancelable. | none | none | onzoom |
beginEvent Occurs when an animation element begins. For details, see the description of Interface TimeEvent in the SMIL Animation specification. | none | none | onbegin |
endEvent Occurs when an animation element ends. For details, see the description of Interface TimeEvent in the SMIL Animation specification. | none | none | onend |
repeatEvent Occurs when an animation element repeats. It is raised each time the element repeats, after the first iteration. For details, see the description of Interface TimeEvent in the SMIL Animation specification. | none | none | onrepeat |
As in DOM 2 Key events ([DOM2EVENTS], section 1.6.3), the SVG specification does not provide a key event set. An event set designed for use with keyboard input devices will be included in a later version of the DOM and SVG specifications.
Details on the parameters passed to event listeners for the event types from DOM2 can be found in the DOM2 specification. For other event types, the parameters passed to event listeners are described elsewhere in this specification.
Event listener attributes can be specified on some elements to listen to a given event. The script in such attributes is run only in response to "bubbling" and "at target" phase events dispatched to the element.
Likewise, event-value timing specifiers used in animation element ‘begin’ and ‘end’ attributes are resolved to concrete times only in response to "bubbling" and "at target" phase events dispatched to the relevant element.
On user agents which support interactivity, it is common for authors to define SVG documents such that they are responsive to user interface events. Among the set of possible user events are pointer events, keyboard events, and document events.
In response to user interface (UI) events, the author might start an animation, perform a hyperlink to another Web page, highlight part of the document (e.g., change the color of the graphics elements which are under the pointer), initiate a "roll-over" (e.g., cause some previously hidden graphics elements to appear near the pointer) or launch a script which communicates with a remote database.
User interface events that occur because of user actions performed on a pointer device are called pointer events.
Many systems support pointer devices such as a mouse or trackball. On systems which use a mouse, pointer events consist of actions such as mouse movements and mouse clicks. On systems with a different pointer device, the pointing device often emulates the behavior of the mouse by providing a mechanism for equivalent user actions, such as a button to press which is equivalent to a mouse click.
For each pointer event, the SVG user agent determines the target element of a given pointer event. The target element is the topmost graphics element whose relevant graphical content is under the pointer at the time of the event. (See property ‘pointer-events’ for a description of how to determine whether an element's relevant graphical content is under the pointer, and thus in which circumstances that graphic element can be the target element for a pointer event.) When an element is not displayed (i.e., when the ‘display’ property on that element or one of its ancestors has a value of none), that element cannot be the target of pointer events.
If a target element for the pointer event exists, then the event is dispatched to that element according to the normal event flow ([DOM2EVENTS], section 1.2). Note, however, that if the target element is in a ‘use’ element shadow tree, that the event flow will include SVGElementInstance objects. See The ‘use’ element for details.
If a target element for the pointer event does not exist, then the event is ignored.
There are two distinct aspects of pointer-device interaction with an element or area:
Determining whether a pointer event results in a positive hit-test depends upon the position of the pointer, the size and shape of the graphics element, and the computed value of the ‘pointer-events’ property on the element. The definition of the ‘pointer-events’ property below describes the exact region that is sensitive to pointer events for a given type of graphics element.
Note that the ‘svg’ element is not a graphics element, and in a Conforming SVG Stand-Alone File a rootmost ‘svg’ element will never be the target of pointer events, though events can bubble to this element. If a pointer event does not result in a positive hit-test on a graphics element, then it should evoke any user-agent-specific window behavior, such as a presenting a context menu or controls to allow zooming and panning of an SVG document fragment.
This specification does not define the behavior of pointer events on the rootmost ‘svg’ element for SVG images which are embedded by reference or inclusion within another document, e.g., whether the rootmost ‘svg’ element embedded in an HTML document intercepts mouse click events; future specifications may define this behavior, but for the purpose of this specification, the behavior is implementation-specific.
An element which is the target of a user interface event may have particular interaction behaviors, depending upon the type of element and whether it has explicit associated interactions, such as scripted event listeners, CSS pseudo-classes matches, or declarative animations with event-based timing. The algorithm and order for processing user interface events for a given target element, after dispatching the DOM event, is as follows:
preventDefault() DOM method, then no further processing for this element is performed, and the event follows the event flow processing as described in DOM Level 2 Events [DOM2EVENTS] (or its successor);:hover, :active, or :focus as described in [CSS2], section 5.11, then the relevant class properties are applied;In different circumstances, authors may want to control under what conditions particular graphic elements can become the target of pointer events. For example, the author might want a given element to receive pointer events only when the pointer is over the stroked perimeter of a given shape. In other cases, the author might want a given element to ignore pointer events under all circumstances so that graphical elements underneath the given element will become the target of pointer events.
The effects of masking and clipping differ with respect to pointer-events. A clip path is a geometric boundary, and a given point is clearly either inside or outside that boundary; thus, pointer events must be captured normally over the rendered areas of a clipped element, but must not be captured over the clipped areas, as described in the definition of clipping paths. By contrast, a mask is not a binary transition, but a pixel operation, and different behavior for fully transparent and almost-but-not-fully-transparent may be confusingly arbitrary; as a consequence, for elements with a mask applied, pointer-events must still be captured even in areas where the mask goes to zero opacity. If an author wishes to achieve an effect where the transparent parts of a mask allow pointer-events to pass to an element below, a combination of masking and clipping may be used.
The ‘filter’ property has no effect on pointer-events processing, and must in this context be treated as if the ‘filter’ wasn't specified.
For example, suppose a circle with a ‘stroke’ of red (i.e., the outline is solid red) and a ‘fill’ of none (i.e., the interior is not painted) is rendered directly on top of a rectangle with a ‘fill’ of blue. The author might want the circle to be the target of pointer events only when the pointer is over the perimeter of the circle. When the pointer is over the interior of the circle, the author might want the underlying rectangle to be the target element of pointer events.
The ‘pointer-events’ property specifies under what circumstances a given graphics element can be the target element for a pointer event. It affects the circumstances under which the following are processed:
| Value: | visiblePainted | visibleFill | visibleStroke |
visible | painted | fill | stroke | all | none | inherit |
| Initial: | visiblePainted |
| Applies to: | graphics elements |
| Inherited: | yes |
| Percentages: | N/A |
| Media: | visual |
| Animatable: | yes |
For text elements, hit-testing is performed on a character cell basis:
For raster images, hit-testing is either performed on a whole-image basis (i.e., the rectangular area for the image is one of the determinants for whether the image receives the event) or on a per-pixel basis (i.e., the alpha values for pixels under the pointer help determine whether the image receives the event):
Note that for raster images, the values of properties ‘opacity’, ‘fill-opacity’, ‘stroke-opacity’, ‘fill’ and ‘stroke’ do not affect event processing.
Magnification represents a complete, uniform transformation on an SVG document fragment, where the magnify operation scales all graphical elements by the same amount. A magnify operation has the effect of a supplemental scale and translate transformation placed at the outermost level on the SVG document fragment (i.e., outside the outermost svg element).
Panning represents a translation (i.e., a shift) transformation on an SVG document fragment in response to a user interface action.
SVG user agents that operate in interaction-capable user environments are required to support the ability to magnify and pan.
The outermost svg element in an SVG document fragment has attribute ‘zoomAndPan’, which takes the possible values of disable and magnify, with the default being magnify.
If disable, the user agent shall disable any magnification and panning controls and not allow the user to magnify or pan on the given document fragment.
If magnify, in environments that support user interactivity, the user agent shall provide controls to allow the user to perform a "magnify" operation on the document fragment.
If a ‘zoomAndPan’ attribute is assigned to an inner ‘svg’ element, the ‘zoomAndPan’ setting on the inner ‘svg’ element will have no effect on the SVG user agent.
Animatable: no.
Some interactive display environments provide the ability to modify the appearance of the pointer, which is also known as the cursor. Three types of cursors are available:
The ‘cursor’ property is used to specify which cursor to use. The ‘cursor’ property can be used to reference standard built-in cursors by specifying a keyword such as crosshair or a custom cursor. Custom cursors are referenced via a <funciri> and can point to either an external resource such as a platform-specific cursor file or to a ‘cursor’ element, which can be used to define a platform-independent cursor.
| Value: | [ [<funciri> ,]* [ auto | crosshair | default | pointer | move | e-resize | ne-resize | nw-resize | n-resize | se-resize | sw-resize | s-resize | w-resize| text | wait | help ] ] | inherit |
| Initial: | auto |
| Applies to: | container elements and graphics elements |
| Inherited: | yes |
| Percentages: | N/A |
| Media: | visual, interactive |
| Animatable: | yes |
This property specifies the type of cursor to be displayed for the pointing device. Values have the following meanings:
P { cursor : url("mything.cur"), url("second.svg#curs"), text; }
The ‘cursor’ property for SVG is identical to the ‘cursor’ property defined in CSS2 ([CSS2], section 18.1), with the additional requirement that SVG user agents must support cursors defined by the SVG ‘cursor’ element. This gives a single, cross-platform, interoperable cursor format, with PNG as the raster component.
The ‘cursor’ element can be used to define a platform-independent custom cursor. A recommended approach for defining a platform-independent custom cursor is to create a PNG image [PNG] and define a ‘cursor’ element that references the PNG image and identifies the exact position within the image which is the pointer position (i.e., the hot spot).
The PNG format is recommended because it supports the ability to define a transparency mask via an alpha channel. If a different image format is used, this format should support the definition of a transparency mask (two options: provide an explicit alpha channel or use a particular pixel color to indicate transparency). If the transparency mask can be determined, the mask defines the shape of the cursor; otherwise, the cursor is an opaque rectangle. Typically, the other pixel information (e.g., the R, G and B channels) defines the colors for those parts of the cursor which are not masked out. Note that cursors usually contain at least two colors so that the cursor can be visible over most backgrounds.
Attribute definitions:
SVG user agents are required to support PNG format images as targets of the ‘xlink:href’ attribute.
interface SVGCursorElement : SVGElement,
SVGURIReference,
SVGTests,
SVGExternalResourcesRequired {
readonly attribute SVGAnimatedLength x;
readonly attribute SVGAnimatedLength y;
};