Is it possible to make a <button> (<input type="button">) work with HTML5 drag and drop in Mozilla Firefox (while still being clickable)?

The following snippet works in Google Chrome but the button and div with button cannot be dragged Mozilla Firefox (unless the Alt key is pressed down, no idea about mobile):

document.getElementById("myDiv").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myDiv")
  }
);

document.getElementById("myButton").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myButton")
  }
);

document.getElementById("myDivWithButton").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myDivWithButton")
  }
);

<div id="myDiv" draggable="true">Div</div>
<button id="myButton" draggable="true">Button</button>
<div id="myDivWithButton" draggable="true"><button>Div with Button</button></div>

Is it possible to make a <button> (<input type="button">) work with HTML5 drag and drop in Mozilla Firefox (while still being clickable)?

The following snippet works in Google Chrome but the button and div with button cannot be dragged Mozilla Firefox (unless the Alt key is pressed down, no idea about mobile):

document.getElementById("myDiv").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myDiv")
  }
);

document.getElementById("myButton").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myButton")
  }
);

document.getElementById("myDivWithButton").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myDivWithButton")
  }
);

<div id="myDiv" draggable="true">Div</div>
<button id="myButton" draggable="true">Button</button>
<div id="myDivWithButton" draggable="true"><button>Div with Button</button></div>

I used draggable="true" and dataTransfer.setData, is there something I missed? Is there some sensible workaround?

(If you want to know what I need this for: I have something which can be either dragged at a certain position or set at the default position [center of current view], my idea was to do both through the button [d&d → choose position, click → default position]. I know that I guess I could try to format a <div> to make it look like a <button> or simply split the control into two elements but I'd rather not.)

• javascript
• html
• drag-and-drop
• cross-browser
• draggable

• 4 This discussion has already been done here. There seems to be a bug in FF which prevents dragging of buttons. – 31piy Commented Dec 8, 2017 at 5:05

4 Answers 4

There is already a bug on Firefox where you can't drag a button. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=568313

However you can drag your div containing button (which is not draggable right now) using 'after' pseudo class. Example:

document.getElementById("myDivWithButton").addEventListener(
  "dragstart",
  function (e) {
    e.dataTransfer.setData("Text", "myDivWithButton")
  }
);

.frontdrop {
   position: relative;
}

.frontdrop:after {
    content: '';
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    position: absolute;
}

<div id="myDivWithButton" class="frontdrop" draggable="true"><button>Div with Button</button></div>

I found a tricky solution:

<label draggable="true" ondragstart="event.dataTransfer.setData('text/plain', '')">
    <input type="button" value="Click me!" style="pointer-events: none" onclick="console.log(event)">
</label>

Wrap input with a draggable label and set pointer-events CSS property to none. Using this method, your button will be interactive and draggable.

From others, I came to know that your issue is because of a bug exists in Firefox. I suggest you to implement custom listeners to imitate drag event. My solution is as follows:

var btn = document.getElementById('btn');

var btnPressed = false;

btn.addEventListener('mousedown', function(e) {
  btnPressed = true;
  px = e.clientX;
  py = e.clientY;
});

btn.addEventListener('mouseup', function(e) {
  btnPressed = false;
})

window.addEventListener('mouseup', function(e) {
  btn.style.MozTransform = "";
  btn.style.WebkitTransform = "";
  btn.style.opacity = 1;
})

window.addEventListener('mousemove', function(e) {
  if(btnPressed) {
    dx = e.clientX - px;
    dy = e.clientY - py;
    btn.style.opacity = 0.85;
    btn.style.MozTransform = "translate(" + dx + "px, " + dy + "px)";
    btn.style.WebkitTransform = "translate(" + dx + "px, " + dy + "px)";
  }
})

<button id="btn">Drag Me</button>

I know its not perfect. Hard-coding is the only way to resolve this issue until Firefox fix this bug.

You can give a little ledge that is draggable next to the button.

.frontdrop:after {
    content: '';
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    right: 20;
    bottom: 0;
    border-width="1";
    border-style: solid;
    position: absolute;
}