[jquery] How can I make a jQuery UI 'draggable()' div draggable for touchscreen?

I have a jQuery UI draggable() that works in Firefox and Chrome. The user interface concept is basically click to create a "post-it" type item.

Basically, I click or tap on div#everything (100% high and wide) that listens for clicks, and an input textarea displays. You add text, and then when you're done it saves it. You can drag this element around. That is working on normal browsers, but on an iPad I can test with I can't drag the items around. If I touch to select (it then dims slightly), I can't then drag it. It won't drag left or right at all. I can drag up or down, but I'm not dragging the individual div, I'm dragging the whole webpage.

So here's the code I use to capture clicks:

$('#everything').bind('click', function(e){
    var elem = document.createElement('DIV');
    STATE.top = e.pageY;
    STATE.left = e.pageX;
    var e = $(elem).css({
        top: STATE.top,
        left: STATE.left
    }).html('<textarea></textarea>')
    .addClass('instance')
    .bind('click', function(event){
        return false;
    });
    $(this).append(e);
});

And here's the code I use to "save" the note and turn the input div into just a display div:

$('textarea').live('mouseleave', function(){
    var val = jQuery.trim($(this).val());
    STATE.content = val;
    if (val == '') {
        $(this).parent().remove();
    } else {
        var div  = $(this).parent();
        div.text(val).css({
            height: '30px'
        });
        STATE.height = 30;
        if ( div.width() !== div[0].clientWidth || div.height () !== div[0].clientHeight ) {
            while (div.width() !== div[0].clientWidth || div.height () !== div[0].clientHeight) {
                var h = div.height() + 10;
                STATE.height = h;
                div.css({
                    height: (h) + 'px'
                });     // element just got scrollbars
            }
        }
        STATE.guid = uniqueID()
        div.addClass('savedNote').attr('id', STATE.guid).draggable({
            stop: function() {
                var offset = $(this).offset();
                STATE.guid = $(this).attr('id');
                STATE.top = offset.top;
                STATE.left = offset.left;
                STATE.content = $(this).text();
                STATE.height = $(this).height();
                STATE.save();
            }
        });
        STATE.save();
        $(this).remove();
    }
});

And I have this code when I load the page for saved notes:

$('.savedNote').draggable({
    stop: function() {
        STATE.guid = $(this).attr('id');
        var offset = $(this).offset();
        STATE.top = offset.top;
        STATE.left = offset.left;
        STATE.content = $(this).text();
        STATE.height = $(this).height();
        STATE.save();
    }
});

My STATE object handles saving the notes.

Onload, this is the whole html body:

<body> 
    <div id="everything"></div> 
<div class="instance savedNote" id="iddd1b0969-c634-8876-75a9-b274ff87186b" style="top:134px;left:715px;height:30px;">Whatever dude</div> 
<div class="instance savedNote" id="id8a129f06-7d0c-3cb3-9212-0f38a8445700" style="top:131px;left:347px;height:30px;">Appointment 11:45am</div> 
<div class="instance savedNote" id="ide92e3d13-afe8-79d7-bc03-818d4c7a471f" style="top:144px;left:65px;height:80px;">What do you think of a board where you can add writing as much as possible?</div> 
<div class="instance savedNote" id="idef7fe420-4c19-cfec-36b6-272f1e9b5df5" style="top:301px;left:534px;height:30px;">This was submitted</div> 
<div class="instance savedNote" id="id93b3b56f-5e23-1bd1-ddc1-9be41f1efb44" style="top:390px;left:217px;height:30px;">Hello world from iPad.</div> 

</body>

So, my question is really: how can I make this work better on iPad?

I'm not set on jQuery UI, I'm wondering if this is something I'm doing wrong with jQuery UI, or jQuery, or whether there may be better frameworks for doing cross-platform/backward compatible draggable() elements that will work for touchscreen UIs.

More general comments about how to write UI components like this would be welcome as well.

Thanks!


UPDATE: I was able to simply chain this onto my jQuery UI draggable() call and get the correct draggability on iPad!

.touch({
    animate: false,
    sticky: false,
    dragx: true,
    dragy: true,
    rotate: false,
    resort: true,
    scale: false
});

The jQuery Touch plugin did the trick!

This question is related to jquery jquery-ui ipad draggable touchscreen

The answer is


This project on github may be your solution

https://github.com/furf/jquery-ui-touch-punch


I was struggling with a similar problem yesterday. I already had a "working" solution using jQuery UI's draggable together with jQuery Touch Punch, which are mentioned in other answers. However, using this method was causing weird bugs in some Android devices for me, and therefore I decided to write a small jQuery plugin that can make HTML elements draggable by using touch events instead of using a method that emulates fake mouse events.

The result of this is jQuery Draggable Touch which is a simple jQuery plugin for making elements draggable, that has touch devices as it's main target by using touch events (like touchstart, touchmove, touchend, etc.). It still has a fallback that uses mouse events if the browser/device doesn't support touch events.


You can try using jquery.pep.js:

jquery.pep.js is a lightweight jQuery plugin which turns any DOM element into a draggable object. It works across mostly all browsers, from old to new, from touch to click. I built it to serve a need in which jQuery UI’s draggable was not fulfilling, since it didn’t work on touch devices (without some hackery).

Website, GitHub link


jQuery ui 1.9 is going to take care of this for you. Heres a demo of the pre:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3872624/lab/touch/index.html

Just grab the jquery.mouse.ui.js out, stick it under the jQuery ui file you're loading, and that's all you should have to do! Works for sortable as well.

This code is working great for me, but if your getting errors, an updated version of jquery.mouse.ui.js can be found here:

Jquery-ui sortable doesn't work on touch devices based on Android or IOS


This project should be helpful - maps touch events to click events in a way that allows jQuery UI to work on iPad and iPhone without any changes. Just add the JS to any existing project.

http://code.google.com/p/jquery-ui-for-ipad-and-iphone/


Caution: This answer was written in 2010 and technology moves fast. For a more recent solution, see @ctrl-alt-dileep's answer below.


Depending on your needs, you may wish to try the jQuery touch plugin; you can try an example here. It works fine to drag on my iPhone, whereas jQuery UI Draggable doesn't.

Alternatively, you can try this plugin, though that might require you to actually write your own draggable function.

As a sidenote: Believe it or not, we're hearing increasing buzz about how touch devices such as the iPad and iPhone is causing problems both for websites using :hover/onmouseover functions and draggable content.

If you're interested in the underlying solution for this, it's to use three new JavaScript events; ontouchstart, ontouchmove and ontouchend. Apple actually has written an article about their use, which you can find here. A simplified example can be found here. These events are used in both of the plugins I linked to.


Examples related to jquery

How to make a variable accessible outside a function? Jquery assiging class to th in a table Please help me convert this script to a simple image slider Highlight Anchor Links when user manually scrolls? Getting all files in directory with ajax Bootstrap 4 multiselect dropdown Cross-Origin Read Blocking (CORB) bootstrap 4 file input doesn't show the file name Jquery AJAX: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource how to remove json object key and value.?

Examples related to jquery-ui

How to auto adjust the div size for all mobile / tablet display formats? jQuery not working with IE 11 JavaScript Uncaught ReferenceError: jQuery is not defined; Uncaught ReferenceError: $ is not defined Best Practice to Organize Javascript Library & CSS Folder Structure Change table header color using bootstrap How to get HTML 5 input type="date" working in Firefox and/or IE 10 Form Submit jQuery does not work Disable future dates after today in Jquery Ui Datepicker How to Set Active Tab in jQuery Ui How to use source: function()... and AJAX in JQuery UI autocomplete

Examples related to ipad

What is correct media query for IPad Pro? iPad Multitasking support requires these orientations How to restrict UITextField to take only numbers in Swift? How to present a modal atop the current view in Swift Presenting a UIAlertController properly on an iPad using iOS 8 Detect current device with UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() in Swift HTML5 Video tag not working in Safari , iPhone and iPad Install .ipa to iPad with or without iTunes How to hide UINavigationBar 1px bottom line How to fix UITableView separator on iOS 7?

Examples related to draggable

Preventing an image from being draggable or selectable without using JS make bootstrap twitter dialog modal draggable Moveable/draggable <div> Draggable div without jQuery UI jquery draggable: how to limit the draggable area? How can I make a jQuery UI 'draggable()' div draggable for touchscreen? jQuery UI - Draggable is not a function?

Examples related to touchscreen

Detecting a long press with Android How to use ADB to send touch events to device using sendevent command? How can I make a jQuery UI 'draggable()' div draggable for touchscreen?