HTMLElement: dragenter event

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The dragenter event is fired when a dragged element or text selection enters a valid drop target. The target object is the immediate user selection (the element directly indicated by the user as the drop target), or the <body> element.

This event is cancelable and may bubble up to the Document and Window objects.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js
addEventListener("dragenter", (event) => {});

ondragenter = (event) => {};

Event type

A DragEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event UIEvent MouseEvent DragEvent

Event properties

In addition to the properties listed below, properties from the parent interface, Event, are available.

DragEvent.dataTransfer Read only

The data that is transferred during a drag-and-drop interaction.

Examples

Styling drop zones on dragenter

In this example, we have a draggable element inside a container. Try grabbing the element, dragging it over the other container, and releasing it.

We listen for the dragenter event to give the other container a purple background while the draggable element is over it to signal that the draggable element could be dropped onto the container.

However, in this partial example, we haven't implemented dropping: for a complete example of drag and drop, see the page for the drag event.

HTML

html
<div class="dropzone">
  <div id="draggable" draggable="true">This div is draggable</div>
</div>
<div class="dropzone" id="drop-target"></div>

CSS

css
body {
  /* Prevent the user from selecting text in the example */
  user-select: none;
}

#draggable {
  text-align: center;
  background: white;
}

.dropzone {
  width: 200px;
  height: 20px;
  background: blueviolet;
  margin: 10px;
  padding: 10px;
}

.dropzone.dragover {
  background-color: purple;
}

JavaScript

js
const target = document.getElementById("drop-target");
target.addEventListener("dragenter", (event) => {
  // highlight potential drop target when the draggable element enters it
  if (event.target.classList.contains("dropzone")) {
    event.target.classList.add("dragover");
  }
});

target.addEventListener("dragleave", (event) => {
  // reset background of potential drop target when the draggable element leaves it
  if (event.target.classList.contains("dropzone")) {
    event.target.classList.remove("dragover");
  }
});

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# ix-handler-ondragenter
HTML Standard
# event-dnd-dragenter

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also