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Re: event handlers

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Sep 6, 2001 3:23PM

Leo,
I am not perfectly certain on some of this, so I tested with the only browser I have available at the moment. -- IE 5.0.
onClick is not equivalent to onSelect.
onClick is actually device independent. It can be triggered by either clicking with the mouse or pressing enter on the keyboard. My understanding is that the onSelect event works better with the select tag. In my quick test, onSelect did not trigger when I activated the link.
onMouseOver and onFocus do not appear to be exact equivalents.
The onFocus event is not triggered when the mouse pointer is moved over the object. It will be triggered only if the object is clicked on by the mouse and the dotted rectangle appears around the object (thus bringing the system focus to that object.) Keyboard navigation tends to move the system focus automatically, so the event is triggered immediately.
onMouseOut is not equivalent to onBlur
Moving the mouse away from an object does not trigger the onBlur event since that does not automatically move the system focus.
Perhaps, someone else might give you better and more detailed information than that.
In general, I try to steer the developers and designers I work with away from using the onMouseOver and onMouseOut events. I really do not know of any way to make them accessible and I am not aware of an accessible alternative. If onMouseOut and onMouseOver events are used, I try to keep them to the role of providing useless fluff, not content.
Tim