Disable image dragging in FireFox

FireFox 3 has a behaviour where clicking on image (even background image) and moving your mouse will start to drag that image around. Actually, when you drag an image, the browser thinks you want to save it to the desktop, so it starts default dragging action. To disable image dragging in FireFox, you will have to prevent default action on mousedown event for the image. Please try to drag left and right image.

Default behaviour drag me	Dragging disabled drag me if you can

<!-- left image (default behaviour) -->
<img src="spider1.png">

<!-- right image (dragging disabled) -->
<img src="spider2.png" onmousedown="if (event.preventDefault) event.preventDefault()">

If you write event.preventDefault() only (without testing), then IE will throw an error. Disabling, or event cancelation is accomplished by calling the Event's preventDefault method. preventDefault cancels the event if it is cancelable, without stopping further propagation of the event.

Small tip, but it can save your time.

This entry was posted on Monday, 13.07.2009. at 14:50and is filed under FireFox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.