Welcome to “Who Moved My Mouse.” Today, we’re going to learn about something cool called mouse move events. These events happen when you move or click your mouse, and they can make things happen on your computer screen!
Whenever you move your mouse, a special function called onMouseMove
is automatically triggered. This function lets you decide what should happen when the mouse moves. For example, imagine you have a monkey on your screen. You can use the onMouseMove
function to make the monkey turn and face wherever your mouse cursor goes!
Inside the onMouseMove
function, there’s something called a parameter, which is like a special helper. In this case, the parameter is named pause
. It keeps track of where your mouse cursor is on the screen. So, when you move the mouse, pause
updates automatically with the new position.
Your mouse cursor’s position is described using two numbers: the x-coordinate and the y-coordinate. You can find these numbers using pause.x
and pause.y
. The x-coordinate tells you how far left or right your cursor is, and the y-coordinate tells you how far up or down it is.
Let’s dive into a fun challenge! Imagine you have a monkey, a crocodile, and three bananas on your screen. There are two functions you can use: onMouseMove
and onKey
. The onMouseMove
function is used when you move your mouse, and it has the pause
parameter. The onKey
function is used when you press a key on your keyboard, and it has the key
parameter.
In this challenge, you want the crocodile to turn and face the monkey. You can do this by making the crocodile follow your mouse cursor using the pause
parameter. When you run the code, the crocodile will follow your cursor, and you can press any key to make the monkey move!
Here’s another example with a monkey, a bat, and three bananas. The onMouseMove
function is used again, and the bat’s x position is set to follow your mouse cursor using pause.x
. The y position of the bat is initially set to 100, so it doesn’t move up or down.
But what if you want the bat to follow your cursor both left-right and up-down? You can change the y position to pause.y
, so the bat tracks your cursor’s y position too. Now, when you run the code, the bat will move right under your cursor. You can bring it to a banana, press the ‘g’ key, and make the bat grab the banana!
Now it’s your turn to experiment with mouse move events. Have fun moving things around with your mouse and see what you can create. Good luck!
onMouseMove
function enhance interactivity in digital applications?pause.y
affect the bat’s movement, and what does this teach you about coordinate systems?Try creating a simple web page where a monkey image follows your mouse cursor. Use the onMouseMove
function to update the monkey’s position based on the pause.x
and pause.y
coordinates. Experiment with different images and see how they react to your mouse movements!
Design a game where you have to move your mouse to specific x and y coordinates on the screen to “collect” virtual items. Use the pause
parameter to track your cursor’s position and see if you can reach the target coordinates to win points.
Create a digital art project where moving your mouse changes the color or shape of objects on the screen. Use the onMouseMove
function to alter properties like color or size based on the mouse’s x and y coordinates. See what creative patterns you can make!
Write a short story where different parts of the story are revealed as you move your mouse across the screen. Use the onMouseMove
function to trigger text or images to appear at certain coordinates, guiding the reader through your story with their mouse.
Create a maze on your screen and use the onMouseMove
function to navigate through it. The goal is to guide a character from the start to the finish without touching the walls. Use the pause
parameter to track your position and see if you can complete the maze!
Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:
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[Music] Welcome to “Who Moved My Mouse.” Let’s learn about mouse move events. Mouse events occur when you move or click your mouse. For the next few challenges, we’re focusing on the events that occur when you move your mouse.
The function `onMouseMove` is automatically called when you move your mouse, and in this function, you can code what should happen as a result. Here’s an example: we have the `onMouseMove` function, which has the parameter `pause`. You can see we’re using `pause` within the function. We are telling the monkey to turn to the position of your mouse cursor. The parameter `pause` holds the position of your mouse cursor, so when you move the mouse, `pause` is changed and automatically updated.
You can access the x and y coordinates of your cursor separately by using `pause.x` and `pause.y`.
Let’s look at a challenge. Here’s a challenge with a monkey, a crocodile, and three bananas. The code has two functions: the `onMouseMove` function, which is called whenever you move your mouse and has the parameter `pause`, and the `onKey` function, which is called whenever you press a key on your keyboard and has the parameter `key`. In this case, we have the monkey step one when any key is pressed.
So, how are we going to use the `onMouseMove` function to complete this challenge? If we look at the challenge, we need the crocodile to turn towards the monkey and maybe towards other things later. We can use the position of your cursor to turn the crocodile.
Let’s try that: crocodile turn to the parameter `pause`. If we run this, we can see the crocodile following my cursor. I can line it up with the monkey, and now I’m pressing any key to get the monkey to move.
Here’s another example with a monkey, a bat, and three bananas. We have the function `onMouseMove` and the parameter `pause`. Within this, we have `bat.setX`, which means we’re setting the x position of the bat to the x position of your cursor, `pause.x`, and we’re setting the y position of the bat to 100.
Then our `onKey` function, which has the parameter `key`, is checking to see if the key ‘g’ is pressed, and if so, the bat grabs what’s underneath it.
Let’s run this as is. When we run this, we can see the bat moving in the x position following my mouse, but if I move my mouse in the y position, the bat’s not moving; it’s staying at 100 because that’s what we have in the code.
Let’s change that. We’ll change the 100 to `pause.y`, so the y position of the bat tracks the y position of your cursor. Now let’s run it, and now the bat is right underneath my cursor. I can bring it to the banana, press ‘g’, and bring it over to the monkey.
Nice! Now it’s your turn to use mouse move events. Good luck!
[Music]
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This version removes any informal language and maintains a clear instructional tone.
Mouse – A small device that you move with your hand to control the pointer on a computer screen. – Example sentence: “I used the mouse to click on the icon and open the game.”
Move – To change the position of something on the computer screen. – Example sentence: “I had to move the character to the right to avoid the obstacle in the game.”
Events – Actions or occurrences that happen during a program, like clicking a button or pressing a key. – Example sentence: “The program waits for events like a mouse click to perform an action.”
Function – A set of instructions in a program that performs a specific task. – Example sentence: “We wrote a function to calculate the total score in the game.”
Parameter – A value that you can pass to a function to customize what it does. – Example sentence: “The function takes a parameter to decide how many points to add to the score.”
Cursor – The blinking line or arrow on the screen that shows where you will type or click. – Example sentence: “I moved the cursor to the search bar to type in my question.”
Position – The specific place where something is located on the screen. – Example sentence: “I checked the position of the character to make sure it was safe from enemies.”
Coordinates – Numbers that give the exact location of something on the screen, usually in the form of X and Y values. – Example sentence: “The game uses coordinates to place the treasure on the map.”
Challenge – A task or problem in a program that requires effort and skill to solve. – Example sentence: “The coding challenge was to create a program that could sort a list of names.”
Keyboard – A set of keys that you use to type letters and numbers into a computer. – Example sentence: “I used the keyboard to type my username and password to log into the computer.”