iostap

See the demo.

How to use it

Download the source files from the build directory, or use Bower.

$ bower install iostap

Initialize the module to start listening for tap events...

window.iostap.initialize();

Then you're good to go. You can listen for "iostap" events on any old element. For example:

$("a.link").on("iostap", function(e) {
  console.log(e.currentTarget);
})

You can pass options to the initialize method or set them later on.

window.iostap.set({
  // Name of the event to be fired
  eventName: "iostap",

  // Class applied to every element in the tree on touch
  activeClass: "__active",

  // Mininum time for the element to be active, after the touch ends
  minActiveMS: 50,

  // options.Buffer area around the element that is still considered active
  buffer: 20,

  // Maximum distance travelled before the touch becomes inactive
  maxDistance: Math.pow(window.innerHeight * window.innerWidth, 0.35),

  // Allow default behaviour and event propagation for events of this type
  allowDefault: function(e){
    e.target.nodeName.match(/^(INPUT|TEXTAREA|SELECT)$/);
  }
});

Tell me more

iostap is a plugin designed to mimic the behaviour of tapping a button in the iOS ecosystem with a great degree of precision, affording developers who build hybrid web apps a greater user experience for their users. iostap is a super-lightweight library, weighing in at about 1kb, and doesn't add unecessary overhead client-side.

Under the hood, there is more going on than you might think.

The library aims to acheive several goals in imitating the native iOS tap:

• Tapping on an element and releasing near that element triggers an "iostap" event.
• Moving a significant distance away from the original element with your finger cancels the event, unless your finger returns to the element without leaving the surface of the touch device.
• When an element is active, the element (and all of its parent elements), are given an __active pseudo pseudo:: class, so that you can control their appearance with CSS. For example: a.button.__active {...}.
• If you start a tap on an element, but it or its parents begin to scroll, the tap event is cancelled.
• The "iostap" event is triggered regardless of whether the device is touch-enabled or not, so you can use it in any environment without extra configuration.
• The library reverts to click events if window.getComputedStyle is unavailable, making it compatible with IE 8.

Developing and testing

There is a Cakefile for building, watching and linting. All these commands can be run with cake.

$ cake build    # Build the library
$ cake watch    # Watch for changes
$ cake lint     # Lint the compiled javascript.

Feel free to submit issues or make pull requests.

Deploy gh-pages

git push -f origin master:gh-pages