Document: pointerLockElement property

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

The pointerLockElement read-only property of the Document interface provides the element set as the target for mouse events while the pointer is locked. It is null if lock is pending, pointer is unlocked, or the target is in another document.

Value

An Element or null.

Examples

Checking pointer lock status

This example contains a <div> element that in turn contains a <button>. Clicking the button requests pointer lock for the <div>.

The example also listens for the pointerlockchange event: when this event is fired, the event handler disables the "Lock" button if an element in the document has the pointer lock, and enables the button otherwise.

The effect of this is that if you click the "Lock" button, the pointer is locked and the button is disabled: if you then exit pointer lock (for example, by pressing the Escape key), the button is enabled again.

HTML

html
<div id="container">
  <button id="lock">Lock</button>
</div>

CSS

css
div {
  height: 100px;
  width: 200px;
  border: 2px solid blue;
}

JavaScript

js
const lock = document.querySelector("#lock");
const container = document.querySelector("#container");

lock.addEventListener("click", () => {
  container.requestPointerLock();
});

document.addEventListener("pointerlockchange", () => {
  const locked = document.pointerLockElement;
  lock.disabled = Boolean(locked);
});