Custom cursor with drag and drop an HTML element without libraries

Question

I have an HTML page which has some draggable elements. Our specs say that hovering mouse on such element the cursor must be grab , and during drag cursor must be grabbing .

I know it is possible to set dropEffect which changes cursor appearance above drop zone, but there are very little options: copy, move, link, and none -- no custom or alike.

I have tried to change cursor with Javascript and CSS, like setting cursor: grabbing; when ondragstart is fired. But browser default move cursor appears instead when dragging on drop zone.

So the question is: What am I missing to show grabbing cursor () during drag?

Unfortunately I cannot use JQuery or other helping libraries in the solution. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It seems that browsers don't allow changing the cursor at the beginning of a drag & drop operation. I don't know why but it's a known issue, I believe they will in the future.

If jQuery is not an option, a possible way around is to implement a drag & drop from scratch, using mouse events and cloning the source element:

var onDragStart = function (event) {
  event.preventDefault();
  var clone = event.target.cloneNode(true);
  clone.classList.add("dragging");
  event.target.parentNode.appendChild(clone);
  var style = getComputedStyle(clone);
  clone.drag = {
    x: (event.pageX||(event.clientX+document.body.scrollLeft)) - clone.offsetLeft + parseInt(style.marginLeft),
    y: (event.pageY||(event.clientY+document.body.scrollTop)) - clone.offsetTop + parseInt(style.marginTop),
    source: event.target
  };
};

var onDragMove = function (event) {
  if (!event.target.drag) {return;}
  event.target.style.left = ((event.pageX||(event.clientX+document.body.scrollLeft)) - event.target.drag.x) + "px";
  event.target.style.top = ((event.pageY||(event.clientY+document.body.scrollTop)) - event.target.drag.y) + "px";
};

var onDragEnd = function (event) {
  if (!event.target.drag) {return;}
  // Define persist true to let the source persist and drop the target, otherwise persist the target.
  var persist = true;
  if (persist || event.out) {
    event.target.parentNode.removeChild(event.target);
  } else {
    event.target.parentNode.removeChild(event.target.drag.source);
  }
  event.target.classList.remove("dragging");
  event.target.drag = null;
};

var onDragOver = function (event) {
  event.preventDefault();
};

.dropzone {
  width: 500px;
  height: 200px;
  background-color: silver;
}

.block {
  position: absolute;
  background-color: pink;
  margin: 10px;
  border: 20px solid pink;
}

.draggable {
  position: absolute;
  cursor: pointer; /* IE */
  cursor: -webkit-grab;
  cursor: grab;
}

.dragging {
  cursor: -webkit-grabbing;
  cursor: grabbing;
  background-color: red;
}

<div class="dropzone" onmouseover="onDragOver(event);">
  Grab and drag block around
  <div class    = "draggable block"
    onmousedown = "onDragStart(event);"
    onmousemove = "onDragMove(event);"
    onmouseup   = "onDragEnd(event);"
    onmouseout  = "event.out = true; onDragEnd(event);"
  >
    I'm draggable
  </div>
</div>