Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable

An easy way to make DOM elements draggable
https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable

dragging elm

Last synced: about 11 hours ago
JSON representation

An easy way to make DOM elements draggable

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
# elm-draggable

An easy way to make DOM elements draggable



[![elm version](https://img.shields.io/badge/elm-v0.19-blue.svg?style=flat-square)](http://elm-lang.org)

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/zaboco/elm-draggable.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/zaboco/elm-draggable)



## Install

Have [elm installed](https://guide.elm-lang.org/install.html).



```sh

elm install zaboco/elm-draggable

```



## Live examples

- [Basic](https://zaboco.github.io/elm-draggable/basic.html) / [Code](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/BasicExample.elm)

- [Custom events](https://zaboco.github.io/elm-draggable/custom.html) / [Code](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/CustomEventsExample.elm)

- [Constraints - restrict dragging to one axis at a time](https://zaboco.github.io/elm-draggable/constraints.html) / [Code](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/ConstraintsExample.elm)

- [Pan & Zoom - drag to pan & scroll to zoom](https://zaboco.github.io/elm-draggable/pan-and-zoom.html) / [Code](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/PanAndZoomExample.elm)

- [Multiple Targets](https://zaboco.github.io/elm-draggable/multiple.html) / [Code](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/MultipleTargetsExample.elm)



## Usage



This library is meant to be easy to use, by keeping its internal details hidden and only communicating to the parent application by emitting [`Event` messages](http://faq.elm-community.org/#how-do-i-generate-a-new-message-as-a-command). So, each time the internals change and something relevant happens (such as "started dragging", "dragged at", etc.), a new message is sent as a `Cmd` and handled in the main `update` function. To better understand how this works, see the snippets below and also the [working examples](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/).



### Basic



In order to make a DOM element draggable, you'll need to:



#### 1. Import this library

```elm

import Draggable

```



#### 2. Define your model

Include:

- The element's position.

- The internal `Drag` state. Note that, for simplicity, the model entry holding this state **must** be called `drag`, since the update function below follows this naming convention. A future update could allow using custom field names. Please note that for the sake of example, we are specifying `String` as the type to tag draggable elements with. If you have only one such element, `()` might be a better type.

```elm

type alias Model =

    { position : ( Int, Int )

    , drag : Draggable.State String

    }

```



#### 3. Initialize the `Drag` state and the element's position

```elm

initModel : Model

initModel =

    { position = ( 0, 0 )

    , drag = Draggable.init

    }

```



#### 4. Define the message types that will be handled by your application

- `OnDragBy` is for actually updating the position, taking a `Draggable.Delta` as an argument. `Delta` is just an alias for a tuple of `(Float, Float)` and it represents the distance between two consecutive drag points.

- `DragMsg` is for handling internal `Drag` state updates.

```elm

type Msg

    = OnDragBy Draggable.Delta

    | DragMsg (Draggable.Msg String)

```



#### 5. Setup the config used when updating the `Drag` state

For the simplest case, you only have to provide a handler for `onDragBy`:

```elm

dragConfig : Draggable.Config String Msg

dragConfig =

    Draggable.basicConfig OnDragBy

```



#### 6. Your update function must handle the messages declared above

- For `OnDragBy`, which will be emitted when the user drags the element, the new position will be computed using the `Delta` `(dx, dy)`

- `DragMsg` will be forwarded to `Draggable.update` which takes care of both updating the `Drag` state and sending the appropriate event commands. In order to do that, it receives the `dragConfig`. As mentioned above, this function assumes that the model has a `drag` field holding the internal `Drag` state.

```elm

update : Msg -> Model -> ( Model, Cmd Msg )

update msg ({ position } as model) =

    case msg of

        OnDragBy ( dx, dy ) ->

            let

                ( x, y ) =

                    position

            in

                ( { model | position = ( round (toFloat x + dx), round (toFloat y + dy) ) }, Cmd.none )



        DragMsg dragMsg ->

            Draggable.update dragConfig dragMsg model

```



#### 7. In order to keep track of the mouse events, you must include the relevant subscriptions

```elm

subscriptions : Model -> Sub Msg

subscriptions { drag } =

    Draggable.subscriptions DragMsg drag

```



#### 8. Triggering drag

Inside your `view` function, you must somehow make the element draggable. You do that by adding a trigger for the `mousedown` event. You must also specify a `key` for that element. This can be useful when there are multiple drag targets in the same view.



Of course, you'll also have to style your DOM element such that it reflects its moving position (with `top: x; left: y` or [`transform: translate`](http://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_2dtransforms.asp))

```elm

view : Model -> Html Msg

view { position } =

    Html.div

        [ Draggable.mouseTrigger "my-element" DragMsg

        -- , Html.Attributes.style (someStyleThatSetsPosition position)

        ]

        [ Html.text "Drag me" ]

```



For working demos, see the [basic example](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/BasicExample.elm) or the [examples with multiple targets](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/MultipleTargetsExample.elm)



#### 9. Triggering on touch

If you want to trigger drags on touch events (i.e. on mobile platforms) as well

as mouse events, you need to add `touchTriggers` to your elements. Building on

the previous example, it looks like this.



```elm

view : Model -> Html Msg

view { position } =

    Html.div

        [ Draggable.mouseTrigger "my-element" DragMsg

        -- , Html.Attributes.style (someStyleThatSetsPosition position)

        ] ++ (Draggable.touchTriggers "my-element" DragMsg)

        [ Html.text "Drag me" ]

```



The

[basic example](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/BasicExample.elm) demonstrates

this as well.



### Advanced



#### Custom config

Besides tracking the mouse moves, this library can also track all the other associated events related to dragging. But, before enumerating these events, it's import to note that an element is not considered to be dragging if the mouse was simply clicked (without moving). That allows tracking both `click` and `drag` events:

- "mouse down" + "mouse up" = "click"

- "mouse down" + "mouse moves" + "mouse up" = "drag"



So, the mouse events are:

- `onMouseDown` - on mouse press.

- `onDragStart` - on the first mouse move after pressing.

- `onDragBy` - on every mouse move.

- `onDragEnd` - on releasing the mouse after dragging.

- `onClick` - on releasing the mouse without dragging.



All of these events are optional, and can be provided to `Draggable.customConfig` using an API similar to the one used by `VirtualDom.node` to specify the `Attribute`s. For example, if we want to handle all the events, we define the `config` like:

```elm

import Draggable

import Draggable.Events exposing (onClick, onDragBy, onDragEnd, onDragStart, onMouseDown)



dragConfig : Draggable.Config String Msg

dragConfig =

    Draggable.customConfig

        [ onDragStart OnDragStart

        , onDragEnd OnDragEnd

        , onDragBy OnDragBy

        , onClick CountClick

        , onMouseDown (SetClicked True)

        ]

```



__Note__: If we need to handle `mouseup` after either a `drag` or a `click`, we can use the `DOM` event handler `onMouseUp` from `Html.Events` or `Svg.Events`.



See [the full example](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/CustomEventsExample.elm)



#### Custom Delta

By default, `OnDragBy` message will have a `Draggable.Delta` parameter, which, as we saw, is just an alias for `(Float, Float)`. However, there are situations when we would like some other data type for representing our `delta`.



Luckily, that's pretty easy using function composition. For example, we can use a [Vec2](https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-explorations/linear-algebra/1.0.3/Math-Vector2#Vec2) type from the `linear-algebra` library, which provides handy function like `translate`, `scale` and `negate`.



```elm

import Math.Vector2 as Vector2 exposing (Vec2)



type Msg

    = OnDragBy Vec2

--  | ...



dragConfig : Draggable.Config Msg

dragConfig =

    Draggable.basicConfig (OnDragBy << (\( dx, dy ) -> Vector2.vec2 dx dy))

```



There is actually [an example right for this use-case](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/PanAndZoomExample.elm)



#### Custom mouse trigger

There are cases when we need some additional information (e.g. mouse offset) about the `mousedown` event which triggers the drag. For these cases, there is an advanced `customMouseTrigger` which also takes a JSON `Decoder` for the [`MouseEvent`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MouseEvent).



```elm

import Json.Decode as Decode exposing (Decoder)



type Msg

    = CustomMouseDown (Draggable.Msg ()) (Float, Float)

--  | ...



update msg model =

    case msg of

        CustomMouseDown dragMsg startPoint ->

            { model | startPoint = startPoint }

                |> Draggable.update dragConfig dragMsg



view { scene } =

    Svg.svg

        [ Draggable.customMouseTrigger () mouseOffsetDecoder CustomMouseDown

--      , ...

        ]

        []



mouseOffsetDecoder : Decoder (Float, Float)

mouseOffsetDecoder =

    Decode.map2 (,)

        (Decode.field "offsetX" Decode.float)

        (Decode.field "offsetY" Decode.float)

```

[Full example](https://github.com/zaboco/elm-draggable/blob/master/examples/FreeDrawingExample.elm)