Many methods used with createEvent
, such as initCustomEvent
, are deprecated. Use event constructors instead.
Creates an event of the type specified. The returned object should be first initialized and can then be passed to EventTarget.dispatchEvent
.
Syntax
var event = document.createEvent(type);
event
is the created Event object.type
is a string that represents the type of event to be created. Possible event types include"UIEvents"
,"MouseEvents"
,"MutationEvents"
, and"HTMLEvents"
. See Notes section for details.
Example
// Create the event. var event = document.createEvent('Event'); // Define that the event name is 'build'. event.initEvent('build', true, true); // Listen for the event. elem.addEventListener('build', function (e) { // e.target matches elem }, false); // Target can be any Element or other EventTarget. elem.dispatchEvent(event);
Notes
Event type strings suitable for passing to createEvent()
are listed in the DOM standard — see the table in step 2. Bear in mind that most event objects now have constructors, which are the modern recommended way to create event object instances.
Gecko supports some non-standard event object aliases, which are listed below.
Event Module | Standard event object | Gecko also supports |
---|---|---|
Text event module | TextEvent |
TextEvents |
Keyboard event module | KeyboardEvent |
KeyEvents |
Basic events module | Event |
Events |
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'document.createEvent' in that specification. |
Living Standard |
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
createEvent | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox
Full support
1
| IE Full support 9 | Opera Full support 7 | Safari Full support 1 | WebView Android Full support 1 | Chrome Android Full support 18 | Firefox Android Full support 4 | Opera Android Full support 10.1 | Safari iOS Full support 1 | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support
- See implementation notes.
- See implementation notes.