Availability

JavaScript 1.0

Synopsis

<a ... onmouseover="handler" ... >
<area ... onmouseover="handler" ...
> link.onmouseover

Description

The onmouseover property of a Link object specifies an event handler function that is invoked when the user moves the mouse over a hypertext link. The initial value of this property is a function that contains the JavaScript statements specified by the onmouseover attribute of the <a> or <area> tag that defined the Link object. When an event handler function is defined in this way by an HTML attribute, it is executed in the scope of element rather than in the scope of the containing window.

By default, the browser displays the URL that a hypertext link refers to in the status line whenever the mouse goes over the link. The onmouseover event handler is invoked before the URL is displayed. If the handler returns true, the browser does not display the URL. Thus, an event handler function that returns true can display a custom message in the status line by setting the Window.status property to any desired value.

Note that while this event handler returns true to tell the browser not to perform its default action (displaying the URL of a link), the onclick event handler of the Link object must return false to tell the browser not to take its default action (following the link). This incompatibility exists for historical reasons. The standard for Form and form element event handlers is to return false to prevent the browser from performing a default action.

In the Netscape 4 event model, the onmouseover handler function is passed an Event object as an argument. In the IE event model, no argument is passed, but the applicable Event object is available as the event property of the Window object that contains the hypertext link.

See Also

Chapter 19; EventListener, EventTarget, and MouseEvent in the DOM reference section