Trigger event

Fire a DOM event such as change, mouseover or keydown on an element.

Only inWarpX Browser

Trigger event sends one browser event to an element, with the options you set. Use it when a page reacts to an event no other block produces: a change after a value was set, a keydown on Escape to close a popup, a blur that starts validation. For ordinary clicks and typing, the dedicated blocks are closer to what a person does.

The Trigger event block's settings, filled in as in the example below.

Settings

Element Selector: The element to fire the event on. The default is html, the whole page. Write a CSS selector or an XPath: a value that starts with /, (, @ or id( is read as XPath. The target button lets you click the element in the profile's browser, inside iframes and shadow roots too, and the double tick checks that the selector finds something.
Examplebody
Multiple: Fires the event on every match, not just the first.
ExampleUnchecked
Mark elementwhen the selector is CSS, not XPath: Tags each element the block acts on, and skips tagged elements the next time this block runs, so a loop moves on to the next match. Only offered for a CSS selector.
ExampleUnchecked
Wait for selector: Keeps looking for the element until it appears or the timeout runs out. Off, the block looks once.
ExampleUnchecked
Selector timeout (ms)when Wait for selector is on: How long to keep looking, in milliseconds. The default is 5000.
Example5000
Select event: The event to fire: mouse events (Click, Double Click, Mousedown, Mouseover and others), Focus, Blur, Input, Change, touch events, Keydown, Keyup, Submit or Wheel. Picking one sets Bubbles and Cancelable back to on and shows that event's own options.
ExampleKeydown
Bubbles: Lets the event travel up to the element's parents, where pages often listen for it.
ExampleChecked
Cancelable: Lets the page's listeners cancel the event.
ExampleChecked
altKeywhen a mouse, touch or keyboard event is chosen: Marks the event as fired with Alt held down. With Debug mode on, Alt is really held during a mouse or keyboard event.
ExampleUnchecked
ctrlKeywhen a mouse, touch or keyboard event is chosen: Marks the event as fired with Ctrl held down. With Debug mode on, Ctrl is really held during a mouse or keyboard event.
ExampleUnchecked
metaKeywhen a mouse, touch or keyboard event is chosen: Marks the event as fired with the Windows or Command key held down. With Debug mode on, that key is really held during a mouse or keyboard event.
ExampleUnchecked
shiftKeywhen a mouse, touch or keyboard event is chosen: Marks the event as fired with Shift held down. With Debug mode on, Shift is really held during a mouse or keyboard event.
ExampleUnchecked
Buttonwhen a mouse event is chosen: Left click, Middle click or Right click. With Debug mode on, it is the button that is really pressed.
ExampleLeft click
clientXwhen a mouse event is chosen: Horizontal position of the pointer in the visible part of the page, in pixels. clientY next to it is the vertical position.
Example240
clientYwhen a mouse event is chosen: Vertical position of the pointer in the visible part of the page, in pixels.
Example180
movementXwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer movement since the last mouse event, across and (with movementY) down, in pixels.
Example0
movementYwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer movement since the last mouse event, downwards, in pixels.
Example0
offsetXwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer position from the left edge of the element, in pixels.
Example0
offsetYwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer position from the top edge of the element, in pixels.
Example0
pageXwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer position from the left edge of the whole page, scrolled part included, in pixels.
Example0
pageYwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer position from the top of the whole page, scrolled part included, in pixels.
Example0
screenXwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer position from the left edge of the screen, in pixels.
Example0
screenYwhen a mouse event is chosen: Pointer position from the top of the screen, in pixels.
Example0
keywhen Keydown or Keyup is chosen: The key the event reports, such as Escape, Enter or a. Typing a known key name fills in code and keyCode for you.
ExampleEscape
codewhen Keydown or Keyup is chosen: The physical key, such as KeyA or Escape.
ExampleEscape
keyCodewhen Keydown or Keyup is chosen: The old numeric key code some pages still read, such as 27 for Escape or 13 for Enter.
Example27
Repeatwhen Keydown or Keyup is chosen: Marks the event as coming from a key held down.
ExampleUnchecked
deltaXwhen Wheel is chosen: Sideways scroll amount the wheel event reports.
Example0
deltaYwhen Wheel is chosen: Vertical scroll amount the wheel event reports. Positive is down. The page's listeners see it; the browser does not scroll because of it.
Example400
deltaZwhen Wheel is chosen: Depth scroll amount, which almost no page reads.
Example0
Datawhen Input is chosen: The text the input event says was entered. It does not change the field's value.
Examplea
Input typewhen Input is chosen: The kind of edit the input event reports, such as insertText or deleteContentBackward.
ExampleinsertText
Delay time (ms): How long to wait after the block finishes, in milliseconds. Write a range such as 1000,3000 to pick a random wait in it each run.
Example500

Every block also has the shared block settings — a description, Disable block and what to do on an error, and Finding elements explains selectors in more depth. Fields that take text accept data from earlier blocks.

What it hands on

Writes nothing to the table or variables. It leaves by its single output once the event has been fired. If no element matches, it fails with an element-not-found error; with Wait for selector on, it first waits up to Selector timeout (ms) for the element. A mouse or keyboard event sent with Debug mode fails with a message that names the selector.

Example: Close a newsletter popup that listens for Escape

Start
Open URL
Delay
Trigger event

Where Trigger event sits in the example workflow.

Add Open URL after Start with https://news.example.com.
Add Delay with 3000, so the popup has time to appear.
Add Trigger event and set Element Selector to body.
In Select event choose Keydown, and leave Bubbles and Cancelable ticked.
Type Escape in key. code and keyCode fill in as Escape and 27.
Run the workflow. The page's own Escape handler closes the popup.

Good to know

Without Debug mode, events are created by script in the page. The page's listeners run, but the browser does not act on most of them itself: a Keydown types no character and does not move the focus, and a Wheel does not scroll.
Focus, Blur and Submit call the element's own method instead of sending an event. Submit on a form sends it without running the page's submit handlers, such as script validation.
For an element that appears late, name it in Element Selector, such as .newsletter-modal, and tick Wait for selector instead of adding a fixed Delay: the run waits for the element, then fires the event on it.
Turn on Debug mode in the block's settings to send mouse and keyboard events as real input from the browser itself, trusted as a person's is. A mouse event lands at the centre of the element, which is scrolled into view first: Click and Double Click click there, Mousedown and Mouseup move there and press or release the button, Mousemove, Mouseenter and Mouseover bring the pointer there, and Mouseleave and Mouseout bring it there and then move it away. Keydown and Keyup press or release key on the element, which gets the focus first.
With Debug mode, the browser makes the event itself, so the position fields (clientX, pageX and the rest), code, keyCode, Repeat, Bubbles and Cancelable are not used. Wait for selector, Selector timeout (ms) and Multiple work as without it: every match gets the event, in page order. Other events, such as Focus, Input, Wheel or the touch events, are still created by script, with Debug mode on or off.
Events are not paced like a person's actions, and Human Emulation is not offered on this block. For clicks and hovering, Click element and Hover element have it.

Trigger event

Settings

What it hands on

Example: Close a newsletter popup that listens for Escape

Good to know

See also