Touch.clientX

The Touch.clientX read-only property returns the X coordinate of the touch point relative to the viewport, not including any scroll offset.

Syntax

touchItem.clientX;

Return value

A long representing the X coordinate of the touch point relative to the viewport, not including any scroll offset.

Example

This example illustrates using the Touch object's Touch.clientX and Touch.clientY properties. The Touch.clientX property is the horizontal coordinate of a touch point relative to the browser's viewport excluding any scroll offset. The Touch.clientY property is the vertical coordinate of the touch point relative to the browser's viewport excluding any scroll offset .

In this example, we assume the user initiates a touch on an element with an id of source, moves within the element or out of the element and then releases contact with the surface. When the touchend event handler is invoked, the changes in the Touch.clientX and Touch.clientY coordinates, from the starting touch point to the ending touch point, are calculated.

// Register touchstart and touchend listeners for element 'source'
var src = document.getElementById("source");
var clientX, clientY;

src.addEventListener('touchstart', function(e) {
  // Cache the client X/Y coordinates
  clientX = e.touches[0].clientX;
  clientY = e.touches[0].clientY;
}, false);

src.addEventListener('touchend', function(e) {
  var deltaX, deltaY;

  // Compute the change in X and Y coordinates. 
  // The first touch point in the changedTouches
  // list is the touch point that was just removed from the surface.
  deltaX = e.changedTouches[0].clientX - clientX;
  deltaY = e.changedTouches[0].clientY - clientY;

  // Process the data ... 
}, false);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
Touch Events – Level 2	Editor's Draft	Non-stable version.
Touch Events	Recommendation	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

[1] Touch events were implemented in Gecko 18.0, but removed again in 24.0 (Firefox 24.0 / Thunderbird 24.0 / SeaMonkey 2.21) on the desktop version of Firefox due to web compatibility issues (bug 888304).

[2] As of Gecko 52.0, touch events support has been fixed and reenabled in Windows desktop platforms.