[jquery] Jquery mouseenter() vs mouseover()

Old question, but still no good up-to-date answer with insight imo.

As jQuery uses Javascript wording for events and handlers, but does its own undocumented, but different interpretation of those, let me first shed light on the difference from the pure Javascript viewpoint:

  • both event pairs
    • the mouse can “jump” from outside/outer elements to inner/innermost elements when moved faster than the browser samples its position
    • any enter/over gets a corresponding leave/out (possibly late/jumpy)
    • events go to the visible element below the pointer (invisible elements can’t be target)
  • mouseenter/mouseleave
    • does not bubble (event not useful for delegate handlers)
    • the event registration itself defines the area of observation and abstraction
    • works on the target area, like a park with a pond: the pond is considered part of the park
    • the event is emitted on the target/area whenever the element itself or any descendant directly is entered/left the first time
    • entering a descendant, moving from one descendant to another or moving back into the target does not finish/restart the mouseenter/mouseleave cycle (i.e. no events fire)
    • if you want to observe multiple areas with one handler, register it on each area/element or use the other event pair discussed next
    • descendants of registered areas/elements can have their own handlers, creating an independent observation area with its independent mouseenter/mouseleave event cycles
    • if you think about how a bubbling version of mouseenter/mouseleave could look like, you end up with with something like mouseover/mouseout
  • mouseover/mouseout
    • events bubble
    • events fire whenever the element below the pointer changes
      • mouseout on the previously sampled element
      • followed by mouseover on the new element
      • the events don’t “nest”: before e.g. a child is “overed” the parent will be “out”
    • target/relatedTarget indicate new and previous element
    • if you want to watch different areas
      • register one handler on a common parent (or multiple parents, which together cover all elements you want to watch)
      • look for the element you are interested in between the handler element and the target element; maybe $(event.target).closest(...) suits your needs

Not-so-trivial mouseover/mouseout example:

$('.side-menu, .top-widget')
  .on('mouseover mouseout', event => {
    const target = event.type === 'mouseover' ? event.target : event.relatedTarget;
    const thing = $(target).closest('[data-thing]').attr('data-thing') || 'default';
    // do something with `thing`
  });

These days, all browsers support mouseover/mouseout and mouseenter/mouseleave natively. Nevertheless, jQuery does not register your handler to mouseenter/mouseleave, but silently puts them on a wrappers around mouseover/mouseout as the code below exposes.

The emulation is unnecessary, imperfect and a waste of CPU cycles: it filters out mouseover/mouseout events that a mouseenter/mouseleave would not get, but the target is messed. The real mouseenter/mouseleave would give the handler element as target, the emulation might indicate children of that element, i.e. whatever the mouseover/mouseout carried.

For that reason I do not use jQuery for those events, but e.g.:

$el[0].addEventListener('mouseover', e => ...);

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const list = document.getElementById('log');
const outer = document.getElementById('outer');
const $outer = $(outer);

function log(tag, event) {
  const li = list.insertBefore(document.createElement('li'), list.firstChild);
  // only jQuery handlers have originalEvent
  const e = event.originalEvent || event;
  li.append(`${tag} got ${e.type} on ${e.target.id}`);
}

outer.addEventListener('mouseenter', log.bind(null, 'JSmouseenter'));
$outer.on('mouseenter', log.bind(null, '$mouseenter'));
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div {
  margin: 20px;
  border: solid black 2px;
}

#inner {
  min-height: 80px;
}
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<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<body>
  <div id=outer>
    <ul id=log>
    </ul>
  </div>
</body>
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Note: For delegate handlers never use jQuery’s “delegate handlers with selector registration”. (Reason in another answer.) Use this (or similar):

$(parent).on("mouseover", e => {
  if ($(e.target).closest('.gold').length) {...};
});

instead of

$(parent).on("mouseover", '.gold', e => {...});