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Enabling Pointer Events in Firefox (desktop) Nightly

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Matt Brubeck

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Apr 24, 2015, 1:57:26 PM4/24/15
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tl;dr:

We plan to enable Pointer Events for mouse and pen input in Firefox Nightly builds within the next few weeks.

Background:

Pointer Events is a W3C recommendation that defines new DOM events for unified handling of mouse, touch, and pen input. It also defines a new 'touch-action' CSS property for declarative control over touch panning and zooming behavior:

http://www.w3.org/TR/pointerevents/

The 'touch-action' CSS property is shipping today in both IE11 and Chrome stable. The DOM PointerEvent API is shipping today in IE11, and the Chrome team plans to ship it soon.

Status:

Implementation of pointer events and 'touch-action' in Gecko has been in progress for several months. Both features can be enabled in Firefox Nightly with prefs, currently off by default. When these prefs are turned on:

* Events for mouse input are supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
* Events for pen input are supported on Windows.
* Events for multi-touch input, and the 'touch-action" property, are a work in progress on Windows. These features depend on e10s, and on Async Pan/Zoom (APZ) which is currently preffed off by default on desktop.
* PointerEvent and 'touch-action' are not yet implemented on Android or Firefox OS, though in the long term much of the code will be shared between all platforms, through the APZ controller.

Plans:

The implementation of Pointer Events should be complete enough to enable in desktop Nightly builds within the next few weeks. This will enable Pointer Events for mouse and pen input. (It will also enable Pointer Events for multi-touch input on Windows when e10s and APZ are enabled, though like APZ itself this is still experimental and will not yet be turned on by default.)

If no serious problems are found, then we want to consider letting this feature ride the train to the Aurora/Dev.Edition channel (but not further).

For the release and beta channels, we may want to wait until after touch input is ready to ship on Windows (depends on e10s + APZ), and we might also want to wait until it is ready to ship on Android and/or Firefox OS at the same time or soon after. When the time is closer, we will send an "Intent to Ship" email to this list for discussion.

See also:

This wiki page has some links to tracking bugs and other information:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Gecko/Touch

smaug

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Apr 29, 2015, 1:34:09 PM4/29/15
to Matt Brubeck
On 04/24/2015 08:57 PM, Matt Brubeck wrote:
> tl;dr:
>
> We plan to enable Pointer Events for mouse and pen input in Firefox Nightly builds within the next few weeks.
>
> Background:
>
> Pointer Events is a W3C recommendation that defines new DOM events for unified handling of mouse, touch, and pen input. It also defines a new
> 'touch-action' CSS property for declarative control over touch panning and zooming behavior:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/pointerevents/
>
> The 'touch-action' CSS property is shipping today in both IE11 and Chrome stable. The DOM PointerEvent API is shipping today in IE11, and the
> Chrome team plans to ship it soon.
I would correct this. Chrome team plans to implement Pointer Events API soon.



>
> Status:
>
> Implementation of pointer events and 'touch-action' in Gecko has been in progress for several months. Both features can be enabled in Firefox
> Nightly with prefs, currently off by default. When these prefs are turned on:
>
> * Events for mouse input are supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux. * Events for pen input are supported on Windows. * Events for multi-touch input,
> and the 'touch-action" property, are a work in progress on Windows. These features depend on e10s, and on Async Pan/Zoom (APZ) which is currently
> preffed off by default on desktop. * PointerEvent and 'touch-action' are not yet implemented on Android or Firefox OS, though in the long term much
> of the code will be shared between all platforms, through the APZ controller.
>
> Plans:
>
> The implementation of Pointer Events should be complete enough to enable in desktop Nightly builds within the next few weeks. This will enable
> Pointer Events for mouse and pen input. (It will also enable Pointer Events for multi-touch input on Windows when e10s and APZ are enabled, though
> like APZ itself this is still experimental and will not yet be turned on by default.)
>
> If no serious problems are found, then we want to consider letting this feature ride the train to the Aurora/Dev.Edition channel (but not
> further).
>
> For the release and beta channels, we may want to wait until after touch input is ready to ship on Windows (depends on e10s + APZ),
Yes, I think we should have proper pointer events support on touch screen laptops before enabling on beta/release.
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