PixiJS Events X

Extended Federated Events API. Backwards compatible replacement for PixiJS Event System that supports focus and keyboard events.

Feature highlight:

• focus system with focus, blur, focusin and focusout events
• keyup and keydown event propagation to focused graph path
• tab/shift+tab navigation
• tab order by tabIndex
• disconnected scene graphs support

Getting started

Install package:

npm install pixi-events-x

Make your PixiJS html mount point focusable (set tabindex attribute). If you also want tab/shift+tab navigation support, make it tabbable (set non-negative tabindex attribute).

<canvas ... tabindex="0" />

Then import module:

import 'pixi-events-x'

Now you can use it like this:

import type { FederatedFocusEvent, FederatedKeyboardEvent } from 'pixi-events-x'

// you can use any descendant of DisplayObject
const someObject = new Container()

// it has to be interactive
someObject.eventMode = 'static'
// make it just focusable (negative values) or also tabbable (zero and positive values)
// it works same as dom `tabindex` attribute
someObject.tabIndex = 0

// subscribe to events
// events work same as their analogs in dom
someObject.on('focus', (event: FederatedFocusEvent) => {})
someObject.on('keydown', (event: FederatedKeyboardEvent) => {})

Disconnected scene graphs

Original PixiJS Event System is meant to provide user ability to manage disconnected scene graphs by nested EventBoundary. You can read more about it here.

pixi-events-x supports this feature too. It provides its own EventBoundary with bindNestedBoundary method that binds two boundaries to propagate events down to disconnected scene graph and manage focus transition. There is also unbindNestedBoundary method to undo binding.

// root of disconnected scene graph
const nestedBoundaryRoot = new Container()
// EventBoundary that will be manage disconnected scene graph
const nestedBoundary = new EventBoundary(nestedBoundaryRoot)

// renderer.eventsX is the same renderer.events, but with proper type
const rootBoundary = renderer.eventsX.rootBoundary
// and yes, they are really the same
console.log(renderer.events === renderer.eventsX) // true

// connection point
const host = rootBoundary.rootTarget.addChild(new Container())
// it should be interactive
host.eventMode = 'static'

rootBoundary.bindNestedBoundary(nestedBoundary, host)

There is an official example of nested boundary. Let's modify it for pixi-events-x compatibility.

import { EventBoundary } from 'pixi-events-x'

class Projector extends DisplayObject {
  constructor(rootBoundary: EventBoundary) {
    this.content = new Container()

    this.rootBoundary = rootBoundary
    this.boundary = new EventBoundary(this.content)

    // same code as in example
    this.originalTransform = new Matrix()
    this.boundary.copyMouseData = (from, to) => { /* ... */ }

    this.evenMode = 'static'

    this.rootBoundary.bindNestedBoundary(this.boundary, this)
  }

  override destroy(options?: boolean | IDestroyOptions | undefined): void {
    this.rootBoundary.unbindNestedBoundary(this.boundary, this)
    this.rootBoundary = null

    super.destroy(options)
  }

  /* ... */
}

const projector = new Projector(renderer.eventsX.rootBoundary)

/* ... */

You can think about disconnected scene graph as shadow dom. Focus behavior will be pretty much the same.

Programmatic focus management

Unlike dom, pixi-events-x doesn't provide focus/blur methods directly on DisplayObject. You should use EventBoundary instead.

const focusableTarget = new Container()
focusableTarget.eventMode = 'static'
focusableTarget.tabindex = -1

const boundary = renderer.eventsX.rootBoundary
boundary.rootTarget.addChild(focusableTarget)

// set focus on target
boundary.focus(focusableTarget)
// current focus target
boundary.activeElement // focusableTarget
// remove focus from current focus target
boundary.blur()
boundary.activeElement // null

// you can set activeElement directly
boundary.activeElement = focusableTarget

// but setting value directly is different from using focus method
// it doesn't care about focusability or interactivity

const nonFocusableTarget = new EventTarget()
focusableTarget.addChild(nonFocusableTarget)

boundary.activeElement = nonFocusableTarget
boundary.activeElement // nonFocusableTarget

boundary.focus(nonFocusableTarget)
boundary.activeElement // null

// instead of setting null value
// focus method also can find first focusable target
// among all parents of non-focusable target
boundary.focus(nonFocusableTarget, false)
boundary.activeElement // focusableTarget

Caveats

Like in dom, the focused target will lose focus if it becomes disconnected from the scene graph. You can disable this feature per EventBoundary by autoBlurDisconnectedTarget property.

renderer.eventsX.rootBoundary.autoBlurDisconnectedTarget = false

Unlike in dom, the focused target will NOT lose focus if it becomes non-focusable or non-interactive.