Drag-and-Drop with jQuery: Your Essential Guide

17 February 2011 / 117 Comments

Dragging and dropping can be a very intuitive way for users to interact with your site or web app. People often use drag-and-drop for things like:

Moving email messages into folders
Reordering lists of items
Moving objects in games around, such as cards and puzzle pieces

Drag-and-drop with JavaScript used to be very hard to do — in fact, getting a decent cross-browser version working was next to impossible. However, with modern browsers and a smattering of jQuery, drag-and-drop is now a piece of cake!

In this tutorial we’ll take a look at how to create drag-and-drop interfaces with jQuery, and we’ll finish with a complete drag-and-drop example: a simple number cards game for kids.

jQuery UI

To add drag-and-drop functionality to your pages, you need to include both the jQuery library and the jQuery UI plugin. jQuery UI is a fantastic plugin for jQuery that adds all sorts of useful user interface widgets, effects and behaviours — including drag-and-drop.

The easiest way to include both libraries is to use Google’s CDN, as follows:

<head>
...

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

...
</head>

Making elements draggable

When you add an element to a web page — such as a div or an image — then that element is fixed in the page. However, using jQuery UI, it’s easy to make any element draggable with the mouse.

To make an element draggable, simply call the draggable() method on it. Here’s a simple example:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>

<style>
#makeMeDraggable { width: 300px; height: 300px; background: red; }
</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

$( init );

function init() {
  $('#makeMeDraggable').draggable();
}

</script>

</head>
<body>

<div id="content" style="height: 400px;">
  <div id="makeMeDraggable"> </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

View Demo »

Adding draggable options

You can pass lots of options to draggable() to customize the behaviour of the draggable element, like this:


$('#makeMeDraggable').draggable( {
    option1: value1,
    option2: value2,
    ...
  } );

Here are some options that you’ll probably want to use often:

containment

By default, you can drag a draggable element anywhere in the page. Usually, though, you want to constrain the element to a certain portion of the page.

You can do this by setting the containment option to various values:

'parent': Constrains the draggable to the parent element
'document': Constrains the draggable to the page
'window': Constrains the draggable to the browser window
A selector: Constrains the draggable to the selected element
Array of 4 values ([x1,y1,x2,y2]): Constrains the draggable to the specified rectangle

cursor

Changes the mouse cursor during dragging. For example, you can set this option to 'move' to turn the mouse pointer into a move cursor when dragging the element.

snap

Set this to a selector (e.g. snap: '#snapToMe') to snap the draggable element to the edges of the selected element. You can also set this option to true to snap the element to any other draggable element in the page.

stack

If you’re making a group of elements draggable — such as a set of cards — you usually want the currently-dragged element to appear on top of the other elements in the group. By setting the stack option to a selector that matches the group of elements, you can make sure this happens. jQuery UI adjusts the z-index properties of the elements so that the currently-dragged element is brought to the top.

For a full list of draggable options see the jQuery UI documentation.

Let’s modify our draggable square example above, and set a few options. Here’s the changed code:

function init() {
  $('#makeMeDraggable').draggable( {
    containment: '#content',
    cursor: 'move',
    snap: '#content'
  } );
}

View Demo »

Notice how the box is now constrained to, and snaps to the edges of, the #content div. The cursor also changes to a move cursor while dragging.

Using a helper

Helpers are elements that are dragged instead of the original element. They are useful when you want to leave the original element in place, but still allow the user to drag something from the element to somewhere else in the page. For example, you might want to let the user drag colours from a colour palette on top of objects to colour them.

You use the helper option to set a helper element for the drag operation. Possible values are:

'original': The default value. The dragged element is effectively the helper, and it moves when the user drags it.
'clone': Makes a copy of the element, and moves the copy instead.
A function: Lets you create a custom helper. You specify a function which accepts an event object and returns the markup for the helper element (or elements). This element is then moved instead of the original.

When using 'clone' or a function to create a helper, the helper is destroyed when the drag operation stops. However, you can use the stop event (see Events: Responding to drags) to retrieve information about the helper — such as its position — before it’s destroyed.

The following example uses a function to create a custom helper element for the drag operation. Again, this is based on the previous examples — I’ve just included the relevant changes here:

<style>
#makeMeDraggable { width: 300px; height: 300px; background: red; }
#draggableHelper { width: 300px; height: 300px; background: yellow; }
</style>

...

<script type="text/javascript">

$( init );

function init() {
  $('#makeMeDraggable').draggable( {
    cursor: 'move',
    containment: 'document',
    helper: myHelper
  } );
}

function myHelper( event ) {
  return '<div id="draggableHelper">I am a helper - drag me!</div>';
}

</script>

View Demo »

Events: Responding to drags

Often when the user drags an element, you want to know when the dragging has started and stopped, as well as the new position of the element. You can do this by binding event handlers to various events that are triggered by the drag operation, like this:


$('#makeMeDraggable').draggable( {
    eventName: eventHandler,
    ...
  } );

Here’s a list of available events:

create

Fired when the draggable element is first created by calling draggable().

start

Fired when the user first starts dragging the element.

drag

Fired whenever the mouse is moved during the drag operation.

stop

Fired when the user lets go of the mouse button after dragging the element.

Your event handler function should accept 2 arguments:

The event object (event).
A jQuery UI object representing the draggable element (ui).

You can use the following 3 properties of the ui object to retrieve information about the dragged element:

helper: The jQuery object representing the helper that’s being dragged. If you haven’t set a custom helper using the helper option then this object is the element itself.
position: An object that contains the position of the dragged element or helper, relative to the element’s original position. The object has 2 properties: left (the x-position of the left edge of the element), and top (the y-position of the top edge of the element).
offset: An object that contains the position of the dragged element or helper, relative to the document. As with position, the object has left and top properties.

Let’s modify our example so that it displays the final position of the dragged element, relative to the document, when the user releases the mouse button. Here’s the relevant code:

<script type="text/javascript">

$( init );

function init() {
  $('#makeMeDraggable').draggable( {
    cursor: 'move',
    containment: 'document',
    stop: handleDragStop
  } );
}

function handleDragStop( event, ui ) {
  var offsetXPos = parseInt( ui.offset.left );
  var offsetYPos = parseInt( ui.offset.top );
  alert( "Drag stopped!nnOffset: (" + offsetXPos + ", " + offsetYPos + ")n");
}

</script>

View Demo »

Styling draggable elements

Sometimes it’s nice to give elements a different look while they’re being dragged. For example, you might want to highlight the dragged element, or add a drop shadow to it so it looks like it’s being lifted off the page.

While an element is actually being dragged, jQuery UI gives the element a CSS class of ui-draggable-dragging. You can then add a CSS rule for this class in order to style the element while the user is dragging it.

Let’s modify our simple draggable square example so that it changes from red to green while it’s being dragged:

<style>
#makeMeDraggable { width: 300px; height: 300px; background: red; }
#makeMeDraggable.ui-draggable-dragging { background: green; }
</style>

View Demo »

Droppables: Accepting draggable elements

So far we’ve learned how to make an element draggable, so that the user can drag it around the page. We’ve also looked at using events to respond to drags and drops.

However, there’s an easier way to deal with drops, and that is to create droppable elements. A droppable element is an element that can accept a draggable element that has been dragged and dropped onto it.

When a draggable is dropped on a droppable, the droppable fires a drop event. By writing an event handler function for the drop event, you can determine which draggable was dropped onto the droppable.

You can also use the over and out events to determine when a draggable is being dragged over or out of a droppable. For more on droppable events, see the jQuery UI docs.

To make an element droppable, you call — you guessed it — droppable().

Let’s modify our draggable square example to include a droppable element that the square can be dropped onto:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>

<style>
#makeMeDraggable { float: left; width: 300px; height: 300px; background: red; }
#makeMeDroppable { float: right; width: 300px; height: 300px; border: 1px solid #999; }
</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

$( init );

function init() {
  $('#makeMeDraggable').draggable();
  $('#makeMeDroppable').droppable( {
    drop: handleDropEvent
  } );
}

function handleDropEvent( event, ui ) {
  var draggable = ui.draggable;
  alert( 'The square with ID "' + draggable.attr('id') + '" was dropped onto me!' );
}

</script>

</head>
<body>

<div id="content" style="height: 400px;">

  <div id="makeMeDraggable"> </div>
  <div id="makeMeDroppable"> </div>

</div>

</body>
</html>

View Demo »

As you can see, we’ve created an event handler function called handleDropEvent() to respond to the droppable’s drop event. As with draggable events, the handler needs to accept an event and a ui object.

The ui object has a draggable property, which is the draggable element that was dragged onto the droppable. Our function uses this object, along with the jQuery attr() method, to retrieve the ID of the dropped element ("makeMeDraggable") and display it using alert().

Complete example: A drag-and-drop number cards game

A lot of the above concepts are easier to grasp when you see them working in a real example. So let’s make one!

We’re going to build a simple number cards game for young kids. The user is presented with 10 number cards in random order, and 10 slots to drop the cards onto. The object of the game is to drop all 10 cards onto the correct slots. Try out the finished game by clicking the button below:

View Demo »

When playing the game, you can view the page source to see all the markup and JavaScript code.

Step 1: The markup

The HTML for our game is straightforward:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>

<title>A jQuery Drag-and-Drop Number Cards Game</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

// JavaScript will go here

</script>

</head>
<body>

<div id="content">

  <div id="cardPile"> </div>
  <div id="cardSlots"> </div>

  <div id="successMessage">
    <h2>You did it!</h2>
    <button onclick="init()">Play Again</button>
  </div>

</div>

</body>
</html>

In the head area we’ve included the jQuery and jQuery UI libraries, and linked to a style.css file which we’ll build in Step 4. We’ve also added a script element for our JavaScript code (which we’ll write in a moment). In the body we have:

A "#content" div to contain the game
A "#cardPile" div that will contain the set of 10 unsorted cards
A "#cardSlots" div that will contain the 10 slots to drop the cards into
A "#successMessage" div to display a “You did it!” message, along with a button to play again. (We’ll hide this initially using JavaScript when the page loads.)

Step 2: The `init()` function

Our first chunk of JavaScript code sets up the game:

var correctCards = 0;
$( init );

function init() {

  // Hide the success message
  $('#successMessage').hide();
  $('#successMessage').css( {
    left: '580px',
    top: '250px',
    width: 0,
    height: 0
  } );

  // Reset the game
  correctCards = 0;
  $('#cardPile').html( '' );
  $('#cardSlots').html( '' );

  // Create the pile of shuffled cards
  var numbers = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ];
  numbers.sort( function() { return Math.random() - .5 } );

  for ( var i=0; i<10; i++ ) {
    $('<div>' + numbers[i] + '</div>').data( 'number', numbers[i] ).attr( 'id', 'card'+numbers[i] ).appendTo( '#cardPile' ).draggable( {
      containment: '#content',
      stack: '#cardPile div',
      cursor: 'move',
      revert: true
    } );
  }

  // Create the card slots
  var words = [ 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five', 'six', 'seven', 'eight', 'nine', 'ten' ];
  for ( var i=1; i<=10; i++ ) {
    $('<div>' + words[i-1] + '</div>').data( 'number', i ).appendTo( '#cardSlots' ).droppable( {
      accept: '#cardPile div',
      hoverClass: 'hovered',
      drop: handleCardDrop
    } );
  }

}

Let’s break the above code down:

Initialize the correctCards variable
We first set up a variable called correctCards to track the number of correctly-dropped cards. When this reaches 10 then the user has won the game.
Call init() when the document is ready
We use $( init ) to call our init() function once the DOM has loaded.
Hide the success message
Within the init() function itself, we first hide the #successMessage div, and reduce its width and height to zero so that we can make it “pop out” when the game is won.
Reset the game
Since init() can be called after a game has already been played, we set correctCards to zero so that the game can begin again, and also clear out the #cardPile and #cardSlots divs so that we can populate them afresh.
Create the pile of shuffled cards
To create the pile of cards, we first make an array, numbers, containing the numbers 1 to 10, then sort the array with a randomizing sort function to shuffle the numbers.

Then we loop through each element in the numbers array, creating a div card element for each number. Inside the div we place the number, so that it appears on the card in the page. Once we’ve created the div object, we store the card’s number in a 'number' key inside the object by using jQuery’s data() method.

We also give the card div an id of 'cardn', where n is the card number. This lets us give each card a different colour in the CSS. We then append the card to the #cardPile div.

The interesting bit in the loop is, of course, the call to the draggable() method. This:
- - Makes the card draggable
  - Uses containment to constrain it to the #content div
  - Uses stack to ensure that the dragged card always sits on top of the other cards
  - Uses cursor to turn the mouse cursor into a move cursor during the drag, and
  - Sets the revert option to true. This makes the card slide back to its initial position when dropped, so that the user can try again. We’ll turn this option off when the user has dragged the card to the correct slot, as we’ll see in a moment.
Create the card slots
The last part of the init() function creates the 10 slots to drag the cards onto. We create an array called words that contains the words “one” to “ten”, then loop through the elements of the words array, creating a slot div for each number. As before, we use data() to record the number of the slot, so we can test if the user has dragged the correct card to the correct slot, and we append the slot to the #cardSlots div.

This time, we call the droppable() method so that the slot can receive a draggable card. We use the accept option with the selector "#cardPile div" to ensure that the slot will only accept our number cards, and not any other draggable element. The hoverClass option adds a CSS class to a droppable when a draggable is hovered over it — we use this option to add a class of 'hovered' to the element, which we’ll highlight using CSS. Finally, we set up a drop event handler called handleCardDrop(), which is triggered when the user drops a card on the droppable. We’ll write this handler next.

You can also use a function with accept in order to limit the types of draggable that your droppable accepts. For more details on the options available with droppable, check out the docs.

Step 3: The `handleCardDrop()` event handler function

The last piece of JavaScript we’ll write is the event handler for our droppables’ drop events, handleCardDrop():

function handleCardDrop( event, ui ) {
  var slotNumber = $(this).data( 'number' );
  var cardNumber = ui.draggable.data( 'number' );

  // If the card was dropped to the correct slot,
  // change the card colour, position it directly
  // on top of the slot, and prevent it being dragged
  // again

  if ( slotNumber == cardNumber ) {
    ui.draggable.addClass( 'correct' );
    ui.draggable.draggable( 'disable' );
    $(this).droppable( 'disable' );
    ui.draggable.position( { of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' } );
    ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', false );
    correctCards++;
  } 
  
  // If all the cards have been placed correctly then display a message
  // and reset the cards for another go

  if ( correctCards == 10 ) {
    $('#successMessage').show();
    $('#successMessage').animate( {
      left: '380px',
      top: '200px',
      width: '400px',
      height: '100px',
      opacity: 1
    } );
  }

}

Let’s work through this function:

Grab the slot number and card number
The first thing we do is grab the number of the slot that the card was dropped on, as well as the number of the dropped card, so that we can see if they match.

As our function is an event handler for the droppable element, we can retrieve the element via the this variable. We then wrap the element inside the $() function to turn it into a jQuery object, then use the data() method to retrieve the value of the 'number' key, and store the value in slotNumber.

Similarly, the draggable property of the ui object contains the jQuery object representing the dragged card. By reading its 'number' key using data(), we get the card number, which we store in cardNumber.

Remember that we stored the slot and card numbers using data() in the init() function in Step 2.
If the card and slot match, drop the card onto the slot
If the 2 numbers match then the correct card was dropped onto the slot. First we add a 'correct' CSS class to the card so that we can change its colour via CSS. We then disable both the draggable and droppable by calling their disable methods. This prevents the user from being able to drag this card, or drag another card onto this slot, again.

Find out more about draggable/droppable methods in the draggable and droppable docs.

After disabling the card and slot, we position the card directly on top of the slot by calling the position() method. This handy method lets you position any element relative to practically anything else, and also plays nicely with draggable and droppable elements. In this case, we’re positioning the card (ui.draggable)’s top left corner (my: 'left top') on top of the slot ($this)’s top left corner (at: 'left top').

Finally we set the card’s revert option to false. This prevents the card from being pulled back to its initial position once it has been dropped. We also increment the correctCards variable to keep track of the number of correctly-dropped cards.
Check for a win
If correctCards equals 10, we have a winner! We show the success message, then animate it from zero width and height up to its full width and height, creating a zooming effect. The success message includes a Play Again button in the markup that triggers the init() function when clicked, thereby starting a new game.

Step 4: The CSS

The last stage of creating our card game is to style the page, cards and slots using CSS. Here’s the complete style.css file:

/* Add some margin to the page and set a default font and colour */

body {
  margin: 30px;
  font-family: "Georgia", serif;
  line-height: 1.8em;
  color: #333;
}

/* Give headings their own font */

h1, h2, h3, h4 {
  font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;
}

/* Main content area */

#content {
  margin: 80px 70px;
  text-align: center;
  -moz-user-select: none;
  -webkit-user-select: none;
  user-select: none;
}

/* Header/footer boxes */

.wideBox {
  clear: both;
  text-align: center;
  margin: 70px;
  padding: 10px;
  background: #ebedf2;
  border: 1px solid #333;
}

.wideBox h1 {
  font-weight: bold;
  margin: 20px;
  color: #666;
  font-size: 1.5em;
}

/* Slots for final card positions */

#cardSlots {
  margin: 50px auto 0 auto;
  background: #ddf;
}

/* The initial pile of unsorted cards */

#cardPile {
  margin: 0 auto;
  background: #ffd;
}

#cardSlots, #cardPile {
  width: 910px;
  height: 120px;
  padding: 20px;
  border: 2px solid #333;
  -moz-border-radius: 10px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
  border-radius: 10px;
  -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
}

/* Individual cards and slots */

#cardSlots div, #cardPile div {
  float: left;
  width: 58px;
  height: 78px;
  padding: 10px;
  padding-top: 40px;
  padding-bottom: 0;
  border: 2px solid #333;
  -moz-border-radius: 10px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
  border-radius: 10px;
  margin: 0 0 0 10px;
  background: #fff;
}

#cardSlots div:first-child, #cardPile div:first-child {
  margin-left: 0;
}

#cardSlots div.hovered {
  background: #aaa;
}

#cardSlots div {
  border-style: dashed;
}

#cardPile div {
  background: #666;
  color: #fff;
  font-size: 50px;
  text-shadow: 0 0 3px #000;
}

#cardPile div.ui-draggable-dragging {
  -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  box-shadow: 0 0 .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
}

/* Individually coloured cards */

#card1.correct { background: red; }
#card2.correct { background: brown; }
#card3.correct { background: orange; }
#card4.correct { background: yellow; }
#card5.correct { background: green; }
#card6.correct { background: cyan; }
#card7.correct { background: blue; }
#card8.correct { background: indigo; }
#card9.correct { background: purple; }
#card10.correct { background: violet; }


/* "You did it!" message */
#successMessage {
  position: absolute;
  left: 580px;
  top: 250px;
  width: 0;
  height: 0;
  z-index: 100;
  background: #dfd;
  border: 2px solid #333;
  -moz-border-radius: 10px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
  border-radius: 10px;
  -moz-box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  -webkit-box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
  padding: 20px;
}

I won’t go into detail with this file, since most of it is either self-explanatory or not relevant to the tutorial. Some rules of interest though:

#cardSlots and #cardPile — the rectangles containing the slots and unsorted cards respectively — are given a 2-pixel dark grey border with rounded corners and a drop shadow.
#cardSlots div and #cardPile div select the slots and cards themselves. They’re floated left so they all line up in a horizontal row, and given some padding and the same style border as the #cardSlots and #cardPile rectangles. Additionally, the card slots are given a dashed border, and the cards are given a nice big font for the numbers. The text-shadow property is used to put an outline around the numbers.
#cardSlots div.hovered is triggered when a card hovers over a slot, thanks to the hoverclass: 'hovered' option we added in Step 2 above. We give this selector a darker grey background, so that the slot is highlighted when a card is hovered over it. This helps the user identify which slot they’re dropping the card onto.
#cardPile div.ui-draggable-dragging is triggered when a card is being dragged (see Styling draggable elements). We give this selector a drop shadow so the card appears to be floating above the page.
#card1.correct through #card10.correct select the individual cards once they’ve been correctly placed, due to the call to addClass() that we made inside handleCardDrop() (see Step 3 above). We give each correct card a different colour to create a nice rainbow effect. We can do this because we gave each card a unique id in Step 2.
Finally, #successMessage styles the “You did it!” box, positioning it centrally in the page and giving it a green background, curvy border and box shadow. We set its width and height to zero initially, so we can zoom it in when the user wins the game.

All done!

We’ve now built our drag-and drop card game. Try it out again if you like:

View Demo »

In this tutorial you learned how to use the jQuery and jQuery UI libraries to add drag-and-drop functionality to your web pages. You looked at:

The Draggable plugin, which makes it easy to turn any element into a draggable widget in the page
How to specify options for draggable elements
Using a helper element, which is dragged instead of the draggable element
Working with draggable events to get information about dragged elements
Styling elements while they’re being dragged, and
The Droppable plugin, which lets you easily identify and handle dropped elements.

Finally, we brought all this knowledge together to build a simple drag-and-drop card game for kids.

I hope you found this article helpful. There’s a lot more to draggables and droppables — and jQuery UI, for that matter — than we’ve covered here. For more information, see the jQuery UI website.

Happy coding!

Comments

Paul11 says

18 February 2011 at 9:26 am

Hi, thanks for the effort, but… whats new and relevant in this post, that is not here: http://jqueryui.com/?

Reply
matt says

18 February 2011 at 5:54 pm

@Paul11: The jQuery UI site is great for reference, but it doesn’t have an introductory tutorial for drag-and-drop AFAIK. Hopefully my tutorial fills this gap to some extent. 🙂

Reply
Decret says

4 March 2011 at 2:54 am

Great tutorial! Will be a base for a bar custom plugin. Nice!!

Reply
matt says

4 March 2011 at 4:31 pm

@Decret: Thanks – glad you enjoyed it. 🙂

Reply
MikeQ says

2 April 2011 at 8:54 pm
Thanks for the tutorial.

It helps me trying to implement a calendar system where people can drag events type to fill a day.
I have a few questions though:
1. I have set helper:”clone” but when dragging the original is moved.
In my case a user can select the same event multiple time during the date so I need the draggable item to remain in place. I did this using the following code:
```
var clone = $(ui.draggable).clone();
            $(this).append(clone);
			 clone.position( { of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' } );
            clone.removeClass('draggable')
            clone.draggable({
                snap: '.ui-droppable',
                
            }); 
```
not sure if it’s the best way but it seems it’s working. Any better solution?

2. I would like if an item is dragged out of the droppable container (cardSlots in the example) the item being dragged to fade out (disappear).

3. Is it possible to have the same container draggable and droppable? I need to be able to move items around after they have been dropped with some rules enforced like after one item was dropped no other item can be dropped in the same location, but if it’s moved the location is available again.

Thanks again for the great tutorial

Mike
Reply
matt says

4 April 2011 at 5:55 am

Hi MikeQ,

Glad you found the tutorial helpful!

1. Not sure why the original would move if you used helper: ‘clone’. That’s certainly not the expected behaviour. Maybe you could post the URL of the full page and we can take a look at the problem?

2. Check out the ‘out’ event for Droppable: http://jqueryui.com/demos/droppable/ – you could create an event handler for this that calls fadeOut() on the draggable then removes it from the DOM.

3. I’ve no idea. 🙂 Have you tried it? Also by default you can move a draggable again after it’s been dragged on a droppable – it’s only disabled in my card game demo because that’s the way the game works.

Reply

MikeQ says

4 April 2011 at 8:44 pm

Hi Matt,

This is what I have:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>

<title>A jQuery Drag-and-Drop Number Cards Game</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">

<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.11/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

var correctCards = 0;
$( init );

function init() {
	
  // Hide the success message
  $('#successMessage').hide();
  $('#successMessage').css( {
    left: '580px',
    top: '250px',
    width: 0,
    height: 0
  } );

  // Reset the game
  correctCards = 0;
  $('#cardPile').html( '' );
  $('#cardSlots').html( '' );

  // Create the pile of shuffled cards
  var numbers = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ];
  numbers.sort( function() { return Math.random() - .5 } );

  for ( var i=0; i<10; i++ ) {
    $('<div>' + numbers + '</div>').data( 'number', numbers ).attr( 'id', 'card'+numbers ).attr( 'sNumber', '' ).appendTo( '#cardPile' ).draggable( {
      containment: '#content',
      stack: '#cardPile div',
      cursor: 'move',
      revert: true,
	  helper: 'clone',
	  zIndex: '2700' ,
	  opacity: 0.5
    } );
  }

  // Create the card slots
  var words = [ 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five', 'six', 'seven', 'eight', 'nine', 'ten' ];
  for ( var i=1; i<=10; i++ ) {
    $('<div>' + words[i-1] + '</div>').data( 'number', i ).attr( 'sid', 'slot'+i ).appendTo( '#cardSlots' ).droppable( {
      accept: '#cardPile div, #cardSlots div',
      hoverClass: 'hovered',
      drop: handleCardDrop
	   

    } );
  }

}

function handleCardDrop( event, ui ) {

  var slotNumber = $(this).data( 'number' );
  var cardNumber = ui.draggable.data( 'number' );
  var oldSlotNumber = ui.draggable.attr( 'sNumber' );
  ui.draggable.attr( 'sNumber', slotNumber );

  // If the card was dropped to the correct slot,
  // change the card colour, position it directly
  // on top of the slot, and prevent it being dragged
  // again

  //if ( slotNumber == cardNumber ) {
    ui.draggable.addClass( 'correct' );
  //  ui.draggable.draggable( 'disable' );
  	if (oldSlotNumber == '') 
		$(this).droppable('disable');
	else {
		$("[sid=slot" + oldSlotNumber + "]").droppable({
			disabled: false
		});
		 ui.helper.remove();
	}
  
    var clone = $(ui.draggable).clone();
    $(this).append(clone);
	clone.position( { of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' } );
    clone.removeClass('draggable')
    clone.draggable({
                snap: '.ui-droppable'
                
            });
    ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', false );
    correctCards++;
  //} 
  
  // If all the cards have been placed correctly then display a message
  // and reset the cards for another go

  if ( correctCards == 10 ) {
    $('#successMessage').show();
    $('#successMessage').animate( {
      left: '380px',
      top: '200px',
      width: '400px',
      height: '100px',
      opacity: 1
    } );
  }

}

</script>

</head>
<body>

<div class="wideBox">
  <h1>Drag-and-Drop with jQuery: Your Essential Guide</h1>
  <h2>A Number Cards Game</h2>
</div>

<div id="content">

  <div id="cardPile"> </div>
  <div id="cardSlots"> </div>

  <div id="successMessage">
    <h2>You did it!</h2>
    <button onclick="init()">Play Again</button>
  </div>

</div>

<div class="wideBox">
  <p>&copy; Elated.com | <a href="http://www.elated.com/articles/drag-and-drop-with-jquery-your-essential-guide/">Back to Tutorial</a></p>
  <p style="font-size: .8em; line-height: 1.5em;"><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This <span xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" rel="dc:type">work</span> by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://www.elated.com/" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">http://www.elated.com/</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>.</p>
</div>

</body>
</html>

It’s working, well almost, I still can’t delete cards by dragging them out of the cardSlots div and I get an error on IE (all versions except 9).
This is the error:
SCRIPT5007: Unable to get value of the property ‘options’: object is null or undefined
jquery-ui.min.js, line 54 character 158

Thanks
Mike

matt says

5 April 2011 at 10:01 pm

@MikeQ:

I think you might want to record when a draggable is successfully dropped on a droppable – you could do this in handleCardDrop(), and store the “dropped” status in the draggable using data(). Then create a handleCardOut event handler that binds to the droppable’s ‘out’ event. If the card in question’s “dropped” status is true then fade the card out by calling fadeOut().

Quick thought – wouldn’t it make more sense to create the clone when the user starts dragging the card (the draggable’s ‘start’ event), rather than when the card is dropped (the droppable’s ‘drop’ event)?

Not sure about the IE error – might be a jQuery UI issue?

Reply
Ely says

8 April 2011 at 6:53 pm

Hi Matt, thanks for the tutorial, very interesting. I’m working on a page which includes drag and drop items with jquerys. Call me thick here but I’ve been trying to see the bit of code that relates to the controlling of the parameters of the drag and drop zone. I see in the demo that the parameters are nicely set and the cards cannot be dragged out of the zone. However, my drag and drop items can be dragged off the page to the right and bottom and I need to stop this.

Can you give me an indication of what coding I have to insert?

Many thanks

Reply
matt says

11 April 2011 at 12:35 am

@Ely: The ‘containment’ option controls limits the draggable elements to a specific element or rectangle. See the “Adding draggable options” section of the tutorial.

Reply
Ely says

11 April 2011 at 3:18 am

Many thanks Matt, I went through this “Adding draggable options” tutorial, changed the code using containment: ‘#content’, snap: ‘#content’ and ………. my problem is solved!!

I’ve got another issue now. My Javascript is working perfectly in Firefox, Crome, Safari, IE 8 but not in IE 7. I haven’t tried it in IE 6 but I imagine its not working either. I’m not able to select and drag my images. Any ideas?

Thanks again

Ely

Reply
matt says

12 April 2011 at 2:06 am

@Ely: Any JavaScript errors in IE7?

Reply

Ely says

12 April 2011 at 4:28 am

Hi Matt, yes at the bottom left the warning ‘error on page’ appears when I place the mouse on top of any of the images. I haven’t got this live yet, but here’s the code (quite a lot I’m afraid):

//<!--Main.js Site-->
//Everything inside will load as soon as the DOM is loaded and before the page contents are loaded.

$(document).ready(function() {			

//LetÂ´s give our â€œulâ€s a Carousel effect by adding the following line of code: $('.productsNav').jcarousel();
	
$('.productsNav').jcarousel();
	$('.desc').css({'opacity':'0.8'})
//Letâ€™s apply a hover effect on the product images so that we can see some info regarding the respective product
//This code will apply a nice hover â€œslideDownâ€ and â€œslideUpâ€ effect.
	$('.productsNav li').hover(
		function(){
			$('.desc', this).slideDown()
		},
		function(){
			$('.desc', this).slideUp()
		}
	)//End of hover

//Apply reflection to all images of class 
$('.reflected').draggable({ revert: 'invalid', helper:'clone', opacity: 0.4, appendTo: 'body',zIndex:9999, containment: '#content', snap: '#content'}).reflect({opacity:0.3, height:0.2});
	
	//calculates total price
	var cartTotal	= function(){
			var total = 0;
			$('.products').each( function() {
				var price = parseFloat($('span.price', this).text());
				var quantity = parseInt($('span.quantity', this).text());
				
				total += price * quantity;
			}
		);
		$('#showTotal').text(total);	
	}
	
//Now letÂ´s bring the â€œdraggableâ€ and â€œdroppableâ€ of jquery UI in action
//Adds products to cart
	var addProductToCart	= function(event, dragged){
		
		/*var $div = $('#container');
	$('.jcarousel-item')
		.jcarousel-item("start",function(event, dragged){
			dragged.limit = $div.offset();
			dragged.limit.bottom = dragged.limit.top + $div.outerHeight() - $( this ).outerHeight();
			dragged.limit.right = dragged.limit.left + $div.outerWidth() - $( this ).outerWidth();
		})
		.jcarousel-item(function(event, dragged){
			$( this ).css({
				top: Math.min( dragged.limit.bottom, Math.max( dragged.limit.top, dragged.offsetY ) ),
				left: Math.min( dragged.limit.right, Math.max( dragged.limit.left, dragged.offsetX ) )
			});   
		});*/
		
		
		//storing the dragged element in a variable
		var pObj	= $(dragged.draggable)
		//storing the main parent i.e "li" in our case
		var mainParent	= pObj.parent().parent();
		var productImage	= pObj.attr('src');
		var productId		= pObj.attr('id').split('_');
		var productTitle	= mainParent.children('.desc').find('.details').text();
		var productPrice	= mainParent.children('.desc').find('.num').text();
		
		//checking if that product already exist in cart, if so we will increase the quantity by 1
        //else a product will get append to the dropOnMe div
		var chkCart	= $('#'+productId[1]+'_cart');
				
//=================================================================
//Conditions
//=================================================================

		  

		  	 var chkCart2	= $('#'+'prod5'+'_cart');
			var chkCart3	= $('#'+'prod6'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod6') &&  (chkCart2.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod5') &&  (chkCart3.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart2	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart3	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart2.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart3.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
  
 //===============================================================
 
            var chkCart4	= $('#'+'prod1'+'_cart');
			var chkCart5	= $('#'+'prod2'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod2') &&  (chkCart4.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod1') &&  (chkCart5.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart4	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart5	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart4.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart5.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart6	= $('#'+'prod1'+'_cart');
			var chkCart7	= $('#'+'prod4'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod4') &&  (chkCart6.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod1') &&  (chkCart7.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart6	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart7	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart6.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart7.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart8	= $('#'+'prod2'+'_cart');
			var chkCart9	= $('#'+'prod4'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod4') &&  (chkCart8.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod2') &&  (chkCart9.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart8	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart9	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart8.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart9.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart10	= $('#'+'prod1'+'_cart');
			var chkCart11	= $('#'+'prod3'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod3') &&  (chkCart10.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod1') &&  (chkCart11.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart10	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart11	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart10.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart11.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart12	= $('#'+'prod3'+'_cart');
			var chkCart13	= $('#'+'prod4'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod4') &&  (chkCart12.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod3') &&  (chkCart13.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart12	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart13	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart12.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart13.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart14	= $('#'+'prod5'+'_cart');
			var chkCart15	= $('#'+'prod7'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod7') &&  (chkCart14.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod5') &&  (chkCart15.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart14	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart15	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart14.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart15.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart16	= $('#'+'prod6'+'_cart');
			var chkCart17	= $('#'+'prod7'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod7') &&  (chkCart16.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod6') &&  (chkCart17.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart16	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart17	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart16.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart17.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart18	= $('#'+'prod7'+'_cart');
			var chkCart19	= $('#'+'prod8'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod8') &&  (chkCart18.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod7') &&  (chkCart19.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart18	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart19	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart18.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart19.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart20	= $('#'+'prod6'+'_cart');
			var chkCart21	= $('#'+'prod8'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod8') &&  (chkCart20.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod6') &&  (chkCart21.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart20	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart21	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart20.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart21.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart24	= $('#'+'prod9'+'_cart');
			var chkCart25	= $('#'+'prod11'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod11') &&  (chkCart24.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod9') &&  (chkCart25.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart24	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart25	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart24.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart25.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart22	= $('#'+'prod9'+'_cart');
			var chkCart23	= $('#'+'prod10'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod10') &&  (chkCart22.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod9') &&  (chkCart23.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart22	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart23	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart22.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart23.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart24	= $('#'+'prod9'+'_cart');
			var chkCart25	= $('#'+'prod12'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod12') &&  (chkCart24.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod9') &&  (chkCart25.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart24	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart25	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart24.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart25.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart26	= $('#'+'prod11'+'_cart');
			var chkCart27	= $('#'+'prod12'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod12') &&  (chkCart26.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod11') &&  (chkCart27.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart26	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart27	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart26.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart27.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart28	= $('#'+'prod11'+'_cart');
			var chkCart29	= $('#'+'prod10'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod10') &&  (chkCart28.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod11') &&  (chkCart29.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart28	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart29	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart28.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart29.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart30	= $('#'+'prod13'+'_cart');
			var chkCart31	= $('#'+'prod14'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod14') &&  (chkCart30.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod13') &&  (chkCart31.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart30	= $('#'+'prod14'+'_cart');
	    chkCart31	= $('#'+'prod13'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod13') &&  (chkCart30.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod14') &&  (chkCart31.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart30	= $('#'+'prod14'+'_cart');
			var chkCart31	= $('#'+'prod15'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod15') &&  (chkCart30.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod14') &&  (chkCart31.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart30	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart31	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart30.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart31.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
  //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart32	= $('#'+'prod13'+'_cart');
			var chkCart33	= $('#'+'prod15'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod15') &&  (chkCart32.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod13') &&  (chkCart33.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart32	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart33	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart32.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart33.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart34	= $('#'+'prod14'+'_cart');
			var chkCart35	= $('#'+'prod16'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod16') &&  (chkCart34.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod14') &&  (chkCart35.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart34	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart35	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart34.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart35.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart36	= $('#'+'prod13'+'_cart');
			var chkCart37	= $('#'+'prod16'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod16') &&  (chkCart36.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod13') &&  (chkCart37.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart36	= $('#'+'prod15'+'_cart');
	    chkCart37	= $('#'+'prod16'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod16') &&  (chkCart36.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod15') &&  (chkCart37.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart38	= $('#'+'prod2'+'_cart');
			var chkCart39	= $('#'+'prod3'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod3') &&  (chkCart38.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod2') &&  (chkCart39.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart38	= $('#'+'prod5'+'_cart');
	    chkCart39	= $('#'+'prod8'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod8') &&  (chkCart38.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod5') &&  (chkCart39.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 
 //=================================================================
 
            var chkCart40	= $('#'+'prod10'+'_cart');
			var chkCart41	= $('#'+'prod12'+'_cart');
		 
  if((productId[1] == 'prod12') &&  (chkCart40.size()==1) ||
	 (productId[1] == 'prod10') &&  (chkCart41.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-Lite2 cannot be bought with Pack2-EXPRESS2." );
  }
  else{
		chkCart40	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
	    chkCart41	= $('#'+'prod'+'_cart');
		  if((productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart40.size()==1) || 
		     (productId[1] == 'prod') &&  (chkCart41.size()==1)){

	  alert ( "Pack2-ENTERPRISE2 cannot be bought with Pack3-Lite3."  );
  }
 
 
 //==================================================================
 //==================================================================================================== 
  else{
	  	  
	
		if(chkCart.size()==1)
		{
			var quantity	= parseInt(chkCart.find('.quantity').text())+1;
			chkCart.find('.quantity').text(quantity)
		}
		else
		{
			$('#dropOnMe').append('<div class="products" id="'+productId[1]+'_cart"><div class="productImage"><img src="'+productImage+'" title="'+productTitle+'"/></div><div class="productInfo"><span class="name">'+productTitle+'</span> <span class="price">'+productPrice+'</span> (x<span class="quantity">1</span>)</div><div class="productRemove"><img src="images/remove.png" /></div></div><div class="clear"></div>')
			.find('div.products:last')
			.fadeIn(1000)
			.find('.productRemove')
			.click(function()
				{
				
					$(this).parent().fadeOut(1000, function()
						{
							var node = $(this)
							node.remove();
							
							//after removing of the product we will re-calulate the total price
							cartTotal();
						})
					
			});
	
	     }
	
     }
	
}

  }

  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }
  
  }// Always remember to put a closed bracket after adding a condition
	    //calculates total price
		cartTotal();
		
	};
	
	$('#dropOnMe').droppable({
		accept:'.reflected',
		activeClass:'activeClassCart',
		hoverClass:'hoverClassCart',
		drop:addProductToCart
	});
	
	})
						   
//========================================================


var cartTotal2	= function(){
			
			var total ="";
			var totalPrice = 0;
			$('.products').each( function() {
				var price = parseFloat($('span.price', this).text());
				var quantity = parseInt($('span.quantity', this).text());		
				total += $('span.name', this).text() + "n" + " Price: "+ price + " Quantity: "+ quantity +"n" ;
				totalPrice +=  price * quantity;
						
			}
			
		);
			total = total+ "Total Price = " + totalPrice;
		$('#showTotal1').text(total);
		return total ;
	}
	
	
	function sendRequest()
	{
		var cart = cartTotal2();
	//	alert(cart);
		var eml = "rafa_sarmiento@yahoo.co.uk";
		var bod ="&body=" + cart;
		var subj ="?subject=Order";
		location.href="mailto:"+eml+subj+bod;
			
	}

//========================================================

//The Accordeon

var ContentHeight = 1570;
var TimeToSlide = 250.0;

var openAccordion = '';

function runAccordion(index)
{
  var nID = "Accordion" + index + "Content";
  if(openAccordion == nID)
    nID = '';
   
  setTimeout("animate(" + new Date().getTime() + "," + TimeToSlide + ",'"
      + openAccordion + "','" + nID + "')", 33);
 
  openAccordion = nID;
}

function animate(lastTick, timeLeft, closingId, openingId)
{  
  var curTick = new Date().getTime();
  var elapsedTicks = curTick - lastTick;
 
  var opening = (openingId == '') ? null : document.getElementById(openingId);
  var closing = (closingId == '') ? null : document.getElementById(closingId);
 
  if(timeLeft <= elapsedTicks)
  {
    if(opening != null)
      opening.style.height = ContentHeight + 'px';
   
    if(closing != null)
    {
      closing.style.display = 'none';
      closing.style.height = '0px';
    }
    return;
  }
 
  timeLeft -= elapsedTicks;
  var newClosedHeight = Math.round((timeLeft/TimeToSlide) * ContentHeight);

  if(opening != null)
  {
    if(opening.style.display != 'block')
      opening.style.display = 'block';
    opening.style.height = (ContentHeight - newClosedHeight) + 'px';
  }
 
  if(closing != null)
    closing.style.height = newClosedHeight + 'px';

  setTimeout("animate(" + curTick + "," + timeLeft + ",'"
      + closingId + "','" + openingId + "')", 33);
}//End of Accordeon

================================

/*reflection.js for jQuery v1.02*/

(function($) {

$.fn.extend({
	reflect: function(options) {
		options = $.extend({
			height: 0.33,
			opacity: 0.5
		}, options);

		return this.unreflect().each(function() {
			var img = this;
			if (/^img$/i.test(img.tagName)) {
				function doReflect() {
					var reflection, reflectionHeight = Math.floor(img.height * options.height), wrapper, context, gradient;

					if ($.browser.msie) {
						reflection = $("<img />").attr("src", img.src).css({
							width: img.width,
							height: img.height,
							marginBottom: -img.height + reflectionHeight,
							filter: "flipv progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(opacity=" + (options.opacity * 100) + ", style=1, finishOpacity=0, startx=0, starty=0, finishx=0, finishy=" + (options.height * 100) + ")"
						})[0];
					} else {
						reflection = $("<canvas />")[0];
						if (!reflection.getContext) return;
						context = reflection.getContext("2d");
						try {
							$(reflection).attr({width: img.width, height: reflectionHeight});
							context.save();
							context.translate(0, img.height-1);
							context.scale(1, -1);
							context.drawImage(img, 0, 0, img.width, img.height);
							context.restore();
							context.globalCompositeOperation = "destination-out";

							gradient = context.createLinearGradient(0, 0, 0, reflectionHeight);
							gradient.addColorStop(0, "rgba(255, 255, 255, " + (1 - options.opacity) + ")");
							gradient.addColorStop(1, "rgba(255, 255, 255, 1.0)");
							context.fillStyle = gradient;
							context.rect(0, 0, img.width, reflectionHeight);
							context.fill();
						} catch(e) {
							return;
						}
					}
					$(reflection).css({display: "block", border: 0});

					wrapper = $(/^a$/i.test(img.parentNode.tagName) ? "<span />" : "<div />").insertAfter(img).append([img, reflection])[0];
					wrapper.className = img.className;
					$.data(img, "reflected", wrapper.style.cssText = img.style.cssText);
					$(wrapper).css({width: img.width, height: img.height + reflectionHeight, overflow: "hidden"});
					img.style.cssText = "display: block; border: 0px";
					img.className = "reflected";
				}

				if (img.complete) doReflect();
				else $(img).load(doReflect);
			}
		});
	},

	unreflect: function() {
		return this.unbind("load").each(function() {
			var img = this, reflected = $.data(this, "reflected"), wrapper;

			if (reflected !== undefined) {
				wrapper = img.parentNode;
				img.className = wrapper.className;
				img.style.cssText = reflected;
				$.removeData(img, "reflected");
				wrapper.parentNode.replaceChild(img, wrapper);
			}
		});
	}
});

})(jQuery);

I would like to think that it is something easy Matt? I’m about to throw the lap top out of the window at the moment!!

Many thanks

Ely says

13 April 2011 at 2:29 am

Matt, when I add the Add On DIVX Plus web player, and I place my mouse over an image, the error pop up appears with the details ‘error: tagName is not an object;

When I disable this Add On I can drag the image but not drop it into the shopping cart. I’ve been trying for days now and this project has to be completed. Got any ideas?

Many thanks

Reply
matt says

16 April 2011 at 8:05 pm

@Ely: I would disable all add-ons to start with, in case any of them are causing the problem.

When you see the “error on page” warning triangle, double-click it to get the full message (including the line number where the error occurred).

Reply
ggmac23 says

5 June 2011 at 7:31 pm

can you tell me how to save the numbers who have moved, you can do with php and mysql, please I need a solution

Reply
matt says

7 June 2011 at 7:20 am

@ggmac23: Best way would probably be to make an Ajax request within handleDropEvent(). You’d send the ID of the card in the request to your PHP script, which would then store the ID in your database table.

You can easily make Ajax requests using jQuery:

http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/

HTH,
Matt

Reply
RSugelSr says

15 June 2011 at 12:22 pm

Hello Matt,

Nice tutorial, but I am having one problem. I’m an eLearning developer and plan to use this for a “matching” interaction. My client has a population of 150K employees on IE6, IE8 or FF3, majority (90%+) on IE6. This interaction works fine in IE8 and FF3, and initially in IE6. In IE6 when I try to move a draggable that’s already been dropped on one of the five targets, it won’t let me. I’ve commented out everything in the handle Drop Event function except the ui.draggable.position statement in order to write my own validation routine. I tried to explicitly set ui.draggable.draggable to enabled, but still a no go. I’m also not reverting when dropped on an incorrect target. Validation will be handled via a Submit button that will grade the interaction all at once with a second attempt allowed if three or more are incorrect.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ray

[Edited by RSugelSr on 15-Jun-11 17:03]

Reply
RSugelSr says

16 June 2011 at 2:19 pm

Not sure what’s going on with IE6, yesterday it didn’t work, today it does.

Reply
matt says

23 June 2011 at 3:30 am

@RSugelSr: That sounds like the IE6 we all know and love 😉 Glad it’s working now anyway!

Reply

mittelman says

12 July 2011 at 11:56 am

Hey Matt,

Really great tutorial. I’m just having an issue. In my handleImageDrop function, the ui.draggable.data() values are not coming through. Can you tell me what I could be doing wrong?

Thanks!

 40         for ( var i=0; i<={{ num_products }}; i++ ) {
 41                 elixirQuery("#img_productImage" + i).draggable( {
 42                         //containment: '#content',
 43                         cursor: 'move',
 44                         revert: true,
 45                         helper: 'clone',
 46                 } );
 47         }
 48         elixirQuery("#div_wishlist").droppable( {
 49                 //accept: '#div_productList div',
 50                 hoverClass: 'hovered',
 51                 drop: handleImageDrop,
 52         });
 53         function handleImageDrop( event, ui ){
 54                 var product_id = ui.draggable.data( 'title' );
 55                 var product_img_src = ui.draggable.data( 'src' ); 56                 alert("The product_img_src is: " + product_img_src);
 57                 alert("The product_id is: " + product_id);
 58                 
 59                 
 60                 jQuery.ajax({  
 61                         type: "POST", 
 62                         url: '/wishlist/add/' + product_id + '/',
 63                         data: "",  
 64                         success: function(){
 65                                 jQuery("#table_wishlist").append('<tr><td><img src="' + product_img_src + '" width=80 height=80</td></tr>');
 66                         },
 67                 });
 68         }

matt says

14 July 2011 at 4:03 am

@mittelman: Where and how are you creating the ‘title’ and ‘src’ data keys on your draggable elements?

Reply
mittelman says

14 July 2011 at 8:36 am

Matt – Forgive my noob-ness at javascript! I was expecting those to be the src and title of my <img> tag that is being dragged. Is there a way to get that info? The biggest problem is that I’m using a template to render my html and there could be 2 or 30 draggable objects, so it’s hard to give them all a unique id and know how to select them using jquery selectors. Thanks for your hlep!

Reply
mittelman says

17 July 2011 at 9:43 pm

Matt – I got it…i needed to call the .attr() function instead of .data(). Thanks its working great now!

Reply
matt says

18 July 2011 at 11:43 pm

@mittelman: Ah I see what you were trying to do now. Yes, data() is for associating extra data with an element via jQuery, and has nothing to do with the element’s attributes.

Glad you got it working!

Reply
eyveneen says

22 July 2011 at 6:20 am

How would I position the current clicked droppable item to land on top position? For example, while viewing photos with the basic demo the photo keeps its current position in the stack.

Reply
mittelman says

22 July 2011 at 7:54 am

@eyveneen – I’m no expert, but I’d say you can do something like this:

var oldHtml = $(“div_target”).html();
var newHtml = newStuff + oldHtml;
$(“div_target”).html(newHtml);

So you’re basically putting the “newStuff” at the beginning and adding the existing stuff to the end of it.

Make sense? Hope that helps!

Reply
gromo says

20 September 2011 at 4:53 am

Hello and sorry for my noobishness..but maybe you where born as a noob too! 😉
I really like this tutorial!
But my problem is as followed:
I like too have some moveable icons which I like to dorp on a Droppable Element. After dropping the icon each icon can open a different Page.
In your tutorial it opens the alert window…how can I change it to a new window for each icon?
THX

Reply

matt says

23 September 2011 at 2:38 am

@gromo: No problem, we were all noobs once 🙂

You can open a new window on a drop event – something like this:

function handleDropEvent( event, ui ) {
  var draggable = ui.draggable;
  var iconId = draggable.attr('id');
  window.open( 'newPage.php?id='+iconId, 'newWindow' );
}

Chris Ward says

3 October 2011 at 2:17 pm

Many thanks for taking the time to put up this tutorial. It’s just what I needed to get my started on a drag and drop task I have.

I’m using Grails for my project – do you have any views on the best ways to integrate Grails and jQuery? I know about the jQuery plugin(s) but wondered if I can get away without them for features such as in your tutorial. I just need the Javascript right? I’d like to keep the technology salad as simple as possible.

Thanks again.

Chris

Reply
matt says

5 October 2011 at 12:46 am

@Chris: I don’t know anything about Grails I’m afraid. It sounds like it’s a server-side web app framework though? In which case it shouldn’t interfere with jQuery at all.

Reply
markw707 says

6 October 2011 at 11:11 am

Thank you for posting this JQuery Drag and Drop tutorial! It’s very well written.

I’m sorry but the cards weren’t visible in the card game in ie9. They work fine in Safari 5.1 though.

Thanks again for posting this tutorial.

Reply
matt says

10 October 2011 at 5:56 am

@markw707: Upgrade to a newer version of jQuery to fix the IE9 issue:

http://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/8052

Reply
brianeoneill says

3 January 2012 at 10:33 am

Great tutorial. Thanks so much for this!

I’m somewhat new to jQuery and JavaScript, and I’ve been struggling through a drag-drop problem with no luck.

Is it possible to prevent one draggable from being dropped upon another draggable?

For example, if I created a tic-tac-toe board where each square is a droppable, and each X and O is a draggable, I would want the draggable to revert if I attempted to drop it on a square that already contained an X or O. I’d also want the droppable to become active again if a draggable is removed from it.

Any advice? Thanks in advance.

Reply
Chris Ward says

3 January 2012 at 11:03 am

Hi brianeoneill,

I do something similar to this in my app. The key thing for me was to maintain a “model” (in your case you could have a 3×3 array representing the drop cells) – i.e. don’t just try to get the info from the visual components.

If the model for the cell is “empty” you can allow the drop and update the model for that cell. If it’s already filled (with an “O” or an “X”) you could maybe use the revert setting to send the draggable back to where it came from.

You’ll need to determine the row/col coordinates from the drop position in order to reference your model, but you can do then by inspecting the position attributes of the draggable relative to the droppable (or you may have a droppable for each separate cell in your game grid).

Hope this helps.

Chris

Reply
brianeoneill says

3 January 2012 at 11:17 am

@Chris Ward
Thanks for the reply. I’ll explore that avenue. Forgive my noob-ness, but can you (or anyone else) recommend a good resource for learning more about creatingin/maintaining a model?

Best,
B

Reply

Chris Ward says

3 January 2012 at 1:13 pm

Hi,

I wanted to get back sooner rather than later but (since time is in short supply) please forgive any glaring errors in “indicative” code below. What I did was take my own Model “class” in JavaScript at attempt to b@stardise it to match your example.

What I am trying to show it holding the state of your game in an abstraction – in this case the “class” Model. Then you can add the handy methods/functions to that to simplify the interactions. For example see the use of

	if(model.isUndefinedRowCol(row, col)) {

Which is the main thing you’re after I think.

Hope it helps – it’s bit rushed but should give some idea of what I meant…


var Model_UNDEFINED = "_"
	
function Model() {
	this.rows
	this.rowCount
	this.colCount

	this.init = function(rowCount, colCount) {
		this.rowCount = rowCount
		this.colCount = colCount
		this.rows = new Array(rowCount);

		for ( var i = 0; i < rowCount; i++) {
			this.rows = new Array(colCount);
		}
		this.reset();
	}

	this.toString = function() {
		var retString = "";

		for ( var i = 0; i < this.rows.length; i++) {
			for ( var j = 0; j < this.rows.length; j++) {
				retString += this.rows[j];
			}
			retString += "n";
		}
		return retString;
	}

	this.reset = function() {
		for ( var i = 0; i < this.rows.length; i++) {
			for ( var j = 0; j < this.rows.length; j++) {
				this.rows[j] = Model_UNDEFINED;
			}
		}
	}

	this.setRowCol = function(row, col, value) {
		if((row == null) || (col == null)) {
			return;
		}
		
		this.rows[row][col] = value;
	}

	this.resetRowCol = function(row, col) {
		if((row == null) || (col == null)) {
			return;
		}
		
		this.rows[row][col] = Model_UNDEFINED;
	}

	this.getRowCol = function(row, col) {
		if((row == null) || (col == null)) {
			return;
		}
		
		return this.rows[row][col];
	}

	this.isUndefined = function(item) {
		if(item == null) {
			return false;
		}
		
		return item == Model_UNDEFINED;
	}
	
	this.isUndefinedRowCol = function(row, col) {
		if((row == null) || (col == null)) {
			return;
		}
		var item = this.getRowCol(row, col)
		return this.isUndefined(item)
	}

}

Use the above in your HTML (script) code with this sort of thing …



var model;

function init() {
	model = new Model(); 
    model.init(3, 3); 
    ... 
    
	.droppable({
		...
		drop : handleDrop,
		...
	});
    
}


function handleDrop(event, ui) {
	
	// work out the row and col you've dropped it on
	
	if(model.isUndefinedRowCol(row, col)) {
		
		// allow the drop
		...
		ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', false );
	
		
		// update the model
		model.setRowCol(row, col) = ui.draggable.data('playerSymbol');
	} else {
		ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', true );
	}
	

}

mclipwala says

3 January 2012 at 1:41 pm

hi Matt, I liked your tutorial on drag and drop features in jQuery.

I am now looking for a drag and drop feature either between two windows (same browsers) or two frames in a window. I saw the jQuery UI documentation and did not find any useful object or method to work on this feature.

Can you please help me or direct me towards some documentation or any article showcasing this feature.

Reply
brianeoneill says

3 January 2012 at 3:01 pm

@Chris Ward,

Wow, thank you SO much for taking the time for such a detailed response. I’m going to give that a try. I’ll be sure to share the results.

Best,
Brian

Reply
matt says

11 January 2012 at 4:51 pm

@Chris Ward: Great answer 🙂

@mclipwala: Not sure if this would be possible using jQuery UI. You might be able to get it to work using HTML5 drag-and-drop (obviously only in newer browsers that support it):

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3694631/html5-drag-and-drop-between-windows

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/dnd/basics/

Reply
rpdwyer says

12 January 2012 at 5:49 pm

Matt,
Great demo… really breaks it down quite well for a true beginner such as myself.

I’ve modified the demo a bit so that the destination pile is vertically stacked, not horizontal. Then I increased the width of the destination pile so it is about 80% the width of the page.

I’ve left the source pile alone so it is the same size. When I drag the card onto the proper destination, I want the card to snap to the same width as the destination div. I tried setting the CSS as follows:

#card3.correct { background: orange; width:500px;}

But doing so in this manner causes problems for the source pile.

Is there a way to make the small draggable card snap to the full width of the destination div?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

–Rick

Reply
matt says

16 January 2012 at 3:25 am

@rpdwyer: Please post the URL of your page so we can see the problem.

Reply
Chris Ward says

16 January 2012 at 7:02 am

@rpdwyer

I think I’ve encountered the same sort of thing. I put it down to the fact that the <div> item actually exists in the source pile so when you change the width via the style then it will “stretch” the containing source pile.

As I recall I found that there were cases were I ended up creating a *new* <div> item (a sort of clone) and then placed that in the destination and could style it without impacting the source.

I am quite new to jQuery and I’ve played around with lots of things in drag and drop so I can’t be very specific.

Reply
rgsamways says

2 February 2012 at 1:03 pm

Hi all,

Want to combine this example with a gallery-like feature where cardpile and cardslots have prev/next links at left and right such that a user can scroll horizontally through a number greater than 10. How best to do it?

Thanks..
Robin

Reply
matt says

2 February 2012 at 11:16 pm

@rgsamways: Off the top of my head…

Try adding the prev/next links, then add click handlers to the links that increase/decrease the margin-left CSS property of the cardPile/cardSlots divs appropriately. Use CSS transitions if you’d like a smooth slide between each position.

Also wrap each div in an outer div with the same dimensions, and apply overflow: hidden to the outer divs. That way the cardPile and cardSlots divs will scroll horizontally within the “window” of the outer div.

Reply
survivant says

3 April 2012 at 8:21 am

Really nice demo. Works fine in Firefox and Chrome, but the drag and drop didn’t work in IE8.0.

I try on my Android Tablet to test the demo and I found out that the drag and drop doesn’t work well. When I try to drag a card, it’s the all page that is dragged instead.

Do you have a version for tablet or a ideas of what I should adapt to make it work ?

Reply
Chris Ward says

3 April 2012 at 9:13 am

@survivant

I’ve felt that pain.

This took it away for me within minutes of discovering it :

http://furf.com/exp/touch-punch/draggable.html

Hope it works for you too.

Regard,
Chris

Reply
k_ace says

10 April 2012 at 2:40 pm

I would like to ask if there is a way to use the objects as a part of form submission. For example, the user will only know the correct placement of the draggable object after clicking the SUBMIT button instead of real time results.

Reply
RSugelSr says

10 April 2012 at 3:38 pm

k_ace,

I used Elated’s D & D as the basis for an eLearning activity. Not a form submission but the same concept. Had to write additional methods, but the basic premise is to compare a drag’s final position to the correct position. After clicking the “Submit” button, it validates visually indicating which items were placed correctly/incorrectly and then displays a “Solution” button which moves all drags to their correct positions.

Reply
kyleross says

13 April 2012 at 9:06 am
Hi,

Firstly I love the plugin, it works great for what I want it to do!

I have used the card-draggable code as I have created a system to approve designs based on the user dragging Object A to Object B then firing a SQL statement.

My problem is when adding the divs, namely:
```
<div id="cardPile"> </div>
<div id="cardSlots"> </div>
<div id="successMessage"></div>
```
I can only see 1 of the drag container, but my project pulls the main container – *with the ‘cardpile’ inside* based on the amount of entries in the database. i.e there are 8 designs, it pulls 8 containers, but this plugin only pulls into the first one. I assume it’s because of the ID?

Can you please help with how to have multiple entities of these divs on one page?

Appreciate any assistance!
Reply
minttoothpick says

18 April 2012 at 1:47 pm

@ChrisWard, your information about the Model ‘class’ for handling a grid-based game layout is something I’ve been trying to figure out myself for the past week or so… I just didn’t realize what exactly I was looking for!

That was a great example, but I was wondering if you know of any other resources that go into the concept a bit deeper; I haven’t come across any tutorials or training that really lays it out.

@matt, this article has been invaluable as well!

Reply
Chris Ward says

19 April 2012 at 6:18 am
@minttoothpick – thank you very much, I am pleased if it helped in any way.

I don’t really know of any other resources. I didn’t find anything on the web to get me going down this route.

There were three influences that drove me to use a “model” –

a) I am using Grails and it’s clear distinction between Model, View and Controller were at the front of my mind at the time. I’ve done a lot of GUI application work over the years to tend to use this approach as default

b) Complexity of what I wanted to store – my application needs to maintain pretty darn complex state and I needed to have it in an actual data structure rather than rely on the DOM states.

c) Load/Save – My application requires me to be able to persist my visual representation and be able to reload it. Once you have your stuff represented in a data structure (the “model” in JavaScript with the member fields and the getters and setters and convenience functions) it’s not too difficult to puke that out in something like JSON. Once you’ve done it in that direction (saving) you can do the other direction (loading). I tend to have a function called
```
inflate(jsonString) 
```
in my models and it just takes the JSON string input and calls a library function to reestablish the proper model instance from it.

I don’t know if this helps at all. My general advice would be to think about a model/data structure that would hold all the state(s) your thing needs. Maybe even write some tests to use the model until you’re happy with it. At that point you can move to doing the visual stuff on top.

One of the first things the appealed to me with jQuery was the ability to attach data to visual objects using
```
$(locator).data(your-bit-of-data)
```
Once you do that it makes it nice and clean to access this data inside a drop method (if you’re using drag and drop) and use that as the param for your calls to your model functions.

Not sure if this makes it clearer or most confusing!

Chris
Reply
minttoothpick says

19 April 2012 at 7:40 am

@ChrisWard – Thanks again for your comments. I have only been working with JavaScript for several months, and it was in the past two weeks that I started using jQuery. Discovering the .data() method has been very helpful.

Currently I am putting together a checkers board game. I started by implementing the <canvas> element and tried a couple related JS libraries for working with it, but it proved too complicated. Now I’m working with jQuery and <div> elements to create the game board, but I am still figuring out how to best reference the individual cells for the game logic.

I haven’t delved into JSON yet but I’ve been hearing about it a lot.

Anyways, I appreciate that you have taken the time to provide such valuable information!

Reply
nicolasmoise says

19 April 2012 at 3:53 pm
Hi, your guide is wonderful and very helpful.

However, I am having a problem. I am using a function to create a helper (instead of clone), but I am trying to pass a variable to this helper. More specifically, I am trying to pass the inner html of the original draggable element to the helper element.

Here is my very lame attempt:
```
function catHelper(event, ui){
    var name=ui.draggable.html();
    return '<div class="cat_helper">'+name+'</div>';
}
```
Reply
Chris Ward says

20 April 2012 at 4:10 am

@minttoothpick

One way to do what you need is to have <div>s for the black and white pieces and 8×8 <div>s for the playing board.

If you want to identify the colour of a piece (or counter or whatever you want to call it) you could apply a .data(“black”) or .data(“white”). However – you might want to use the css class attribute since you’ll probably be needed to style these <div>s to have a black or white image.

Then on the board each of the squares could have data in the range .data(“1,1”) … .data(“8,8”).

If you make the board squares droppable, and the playing piece draggable then when you drop a piece onto a square you should be able to work out the piece colour and the grid reference in the handleDrop function (which gives you a reference to both the draggable and the droppable)

Once you have these you could call your model method like

model.setCell( x, y, pieceColour )

Something along those lines should work I’d have thought.

Reply
matt says

27 April 2012 at 7:46 pm

@minttoothpick: If you want to learn JSON then you might enjoy my tutorial:

http://www.elated.com/articles/json-basics/

@nicolasmoise: Off the top of my head, you probably want to create a closure, passing in the draggable element so that your function can access it.

Reply
xkater says

18 May 2012 at 2:11 am

thanks for the great dnd tutorial, Matt!
In the tutorial, the numbers get located randomly in the Card Pile, and the Card Slots are located 1-10, left to right — Card “1” will always drop on the first Slot.
I want to build a game where you don’t know which ‘Correct’ slot the number should drop into – in other words, so slot “1” (array position 0) locates randomly in the row of 10 Card Slot locations, instead of always in the first (left-most) location, but i’ve had no luck ‘sorting’ the Slots to any other position.

any ideas?

tia

Reply
danahartweg says

2 June 2012 at 5:05 pm

First of all, this is a great introduction to jQuery UI and drag and drop! I found it immensely helpful when getting up to speed and implementing it in to my project.

One issue I came across was reassigning the parent div of the draggable object when a drop occurred. You can get some positioning weirdness.

If anyone runs across the same problem, you can see my solution here: http://eightbitswitch.com/2012/06/jquery-ui-drag-and-drop-to-change-parent-div/

Reply
matt says

15 June 2012 at 2:20 am

@xkater: Can you not just call the sort() method on the words array, in the same way as the numbers array?

@danahartweg: Thanks for posting that solution 🙂

Reply
crush123 says

3 July 2012 at 10:47 am

Excellent article, very helpful.

I have a project in mind, so will try to get to grips with this

Taking the card example as a starting point, I would like to add multiple instances of the same card(s) and stack them on top of each other, (or nearly on top, so you can tell its a stack).

Grateful for an approach

Reply
mnaputi says

14 August 2012 at 9:26 pm

Great article.

I would like to set this up for my students where they can practice vocabulary, but I am still relatively new to jquery.

How would I go about replacing the numerals with images so that an image could be dragged onto the correct word?

Thanks in advance!

Reply
sameera207 says

9 October 2012 at 10:40 pm

Superb article, everything is crystal clear, thanks a lot for finding time to compose this

cheers

sameera

Reply
Foreverns says

18 October 2012 at 4:06 am

That’s cool

Reply
piapoco says

9 November 2012 at 1:00 pm

Hi, Matt. I’ve found your code great, but I’ve run into a problem with Chrome: when the user zooms in or out ,the cards refuse to drop in their intended positions. Have you developed a solution yet? Thanks a lot for the code and for your answer!

Reply
matt says

21 November 2012 at 9:29 pm

@piapoco: Looks like a general problem with any jQuery UI draggable. Try zooming in then dragging “I only snap to the big box” – it no longer snaps to the big box edges: http://jqueryui.com/draggable/#snap-to

Reply
goldilaks says

26 November 2012 at 1:48 pm

Thanks so much for the guide. This was my first try at using drag and drop (and pretty much jQuery in general) and you walked me through it easily. Great article and helpful links to the documentation.

Reply
matt says

17 December 2012 at 3:52 pm

@goldilaks You’re welcome – thanks for your feedback. 🙂

Reply

peterbrowne says

20 December 2012 at 1:18 am

Many thanks for this great tutorial!! I would like to create the slot divs arranged in a circle, perhaps using the following:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
var radius = 200; // radius of the circle
var fields = $('.field'),
    container = $('#container'),
    width = container.width(),
    height = container.height(),
    angle = 0,
    step = (2*Math.PI) / fields.length;
fields.each(function() {
    var x = Math.round(width/2 + radius * Math.cos(angle) - $(this).width()/2),
        y = Math.round(height/2 + radius * Math.sin(angle) - $(this).height()/2);
    $(this).css({
        left: x + 'px',
        top: y + 'px'
    });
    angle += step;
});
});
</script>

</head>

<body>
<div id="container">
<!--    <div id="center"></div>
    <div id="crosshair-x"></div>
    <div id="crosshair-y"></div>-->
    <div class="field">1</div>
    <div class="field">2</div>
    <div class="field">3</div>
    <div class="field">4</div>
    <div class="field">5</div>
    <div class="field">6</div>
    <div class="field">7</div>
    <div class="field">8</div>
    <div class="field">9</div>
</div>

Any ideas on how I can incorporate this into the drag and drop code so that it works with 9 slots and cards arranged in a circle?

[Edited by peterbrowne on 20-Dec-12 02:11]

shabnam_d says

1 January 2013 at 4:51 am

some of users of my website cannot see draggable box in IE9.
what can i do ?

Reply
chrishirst says

1 January 2013 at 4:45 pm

Use conditional comments to show an alternative.

Reply
DIFowler says

18 February 2013 at 3:30 pm
Apologies for the possibly n00b question, but how to change the first numerical array in the card game example to a string array so it still matches the cards correctly. ie change this array:
```
var numbers = [ 1, 2, 
```
to a string array of words (for example):
```
var numbers = [ 'un', 'deux'
```
I presume the randomizing ‘.sort’ function is preventing correct matching if the numerical array is changed to a string array? Anyone done a non-numerical matching game?

But anyway thank you @Matt for the excellent tutorial, I like learning from real-world examples like this and you’ve explained it all so clearly!

[Edited by DIFowler on 18-Feb-13 20:12]
Reply
kondrow says

18 February 2013 at 8:30 pm
can the numbers[] variable filled with image instead of number?
```
var numbers =  [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 ,20 ];
```
Reply
cantrecall says

28 February 2013 at 10:18 pm

I am using ubuntu and firefox. The demo works online but if you copy the html and style code from this web page and run on your computer it doesn’t. You can not drag the cards past slot number 8. You can not drag cards to slot nine or ten. I added a width of 100% to the #containment div. It worked o.k. Why would it work online and not on the local computer?

[Edited by cantrecall on 01-Mar-13 08:59]

Reply
gutu says

29 March 2013 at 3:56 pm

I am very happy about your information!! It is genial and helpful!!
But it does not run on my android phone. I cannot drag anything. The cards do not move.
I am a teacher in Austria and I want to develop questions with drag & drop for my students.
Most of them using their smartphones.
What should I do to make it run on smartphones and tablets???
Thank you very much and greetings from Salzburg!

Uwe

Reply
Chris Ward says

31 March 2013 at 11:57 am

Hi Uwe,

I use drag and drop a lot based originally on this article. I also use TouchPunch to extend to drag and drop for iPad but I recently noticed that the only tablet that failed to work was one using the Android browser.

I appreciate is is not much help to you but I would also be interested in the answer.

Chris Ward

Reply
gutu says

31 March 2013 at 3:46 pm

Hi Chris,

thank you very much for your mail! I found a solution with your help and it worked on my android phone also.
I made some modifications of your example: http://www.ats.eu.com/drop and I will combine it with my database to develop more examples….

Best wishes
Uwe

Reply

hitech says

30 May 2013 at 10:52 am

Hi Matt,
I’m not sure if you are still following this post or not, but any how, I wanted to check with you about some tweak that I made to your code.

My goal is to use this drag and drop for sorting type of exercises for our users.

And I will include the code that i have changed here. My question is how to get the order in which the user has placed his choices in cardSlots. That is, I want to save the user’s answer.

Is there any way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

<%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="Test.aspx.vb" Inherits="Project.Test"
    EnableEventValidation="false" ValidateRequest="false" %>

<%@ Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit" TagPrefix="asp" %>
<%@ Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit.HTMLEditor"
    TagPrefix="cc1" %>
<!DOCTYPE html" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head runat="server">
    <title>Sorting Exercise</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        /* Add some margin to the page and set a default font and colour */
        
        body
        {
            margin: 30px;
            font-family: "Georgia" , serif;
            line-height: 1.8em;
            color: #333;
        }
        
        /* Give headings their own font */
        
        h1, h2, h3, h4
        {
            font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode" , "Lucida Grande" , sans-serif;
        }
        
        /* Main content area */
        
        #content
        {
            margin: 80px 70px;
            text-align: center;
            -moz-user-select: none;
            -webkit-user-select: none;
            user-select: none;
        }
        
        /* Header/footer boxes */
        
        .wideBox
        {
            clear: both;
            text-align: center;
            margin: 70px;
            padding: 10px;
            background: #ebedf2;
            border: 1px solid #333;
        }
        
        .wideBox h1
        {
            font-weight: bold;
            margin: 20px;
            color: #666;
            font-size: 1.5em;
        }
        
        /* Slots for final card positions */
        
        #cardSlots
        {
            margin: 50px auto 0 auto;
            background: #ddf;
        }
        
        /* The initial pile of unsorted cards */
        
        #cardPile
        {
            margin: 0 auto;
            background: #ffd;
        }
        
        #cardSlots, #cardPile
        {
            width: 200px;
            height: 400px;
            padding: 0px;
            border: 2px solid #333;
            -moz-border-radius: 10px;
            -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
            border-radius: 10px;
            -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
        }
        
        /* Individual cards and slots */
        
        #cardSlots div, #cardPile div
        {
            float: left;
            width: 80%;
            height: 20px;
            padding: 5px;
            padding-top: 5px;
            padding-bottom: 5px;
            border: 2px solid #333;
            -moz-border-radius: 10px;
            -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
            border-radius: 10px;
            margin: 0 0 0 10px;
            background: #fff;
        }
        
        #cardSlots div:first-child, #cardPile div:first-child
        {
            /*margin-left: 0;*/
        }
        
        #cardSlots div.hovered
        {
            background: #aaa;
        }
        
        #cardSlots div
        {
            border-style: dashed;
        }
        
        #cardPile div
        {
            background: #666;
            color: #fff;
            font-size: 12px;
            text-shadow: 0 0 3px #000;
        }
        
        #cardPile div.ui-draggable-dragging
        {
            -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            box-shadow: 0 0 .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
        }
        
        /* Individually coloured cards */
        #card0.correct
        {
            background: silver;
        }
        #card1.correct
        {
            background: red;
        }
        #card2.correct
        {
            background: brown;
        }
        #card3.correct
        {
            background: orange;
        }
        #card4.correct
        {
            background: yellow;
        }
        #card5.correct
        {
            background: green;
        }
        #card6.correct
        {
            background: cyan;
        }
        #card7.correct
        {
            background: blue;
        }
        #card8.correct
        {
            background: indigo;
        }
        #card9.correct
        {
            background: purple;
        }
        #card10.correct
        {
            background: violet;
        }
        #card11.correct
        {
            background: lime;
        }
        #card12.correct
        {
            background: Teal;
        }
        #card13.correct
        {
            background: Olive;
        }
        #card14.correct
        {
            background: White;
        }
        #card15.correct
        {
            background: Navy;
        }
        #card16.correct
        {
            background: gray;
        }
        
        /* "You did it!" message */
        #successMessage
        {
            position: absolute;
            left: 580px;
            top: 250px;
            width: 0;
            height: 0;
            z-index: 100;
            background: #dfd;
            border: 2px solid #333;
            -moz-border-radius: 10px;
            -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
            border-radius: 10px;
            -moz-box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            -webkit-box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
            padding: 20px;
        }
    </style>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.9/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        var correctCards = 0;
        $(init);
        //When|we|got|to|the|concert,|the |orchestra| had|already| begun|to|play.
        var numbers = [[0, 'When'], [1, 'we'], [2, 'got'], [3, 'to'], [4, 'the'], [5, 'concert'], [6, 'the'], [7, 'orchestra'], [8, 'had'], [9, 'already'], [10, 'begun'], [11, 'to'], [12, 'play']];
        var numbersunsorted = [[0, 'When'], [1, 'we'], [2, 'got'], [3, 'to'], [4, 'the'], [5, 'concert'], [6, 'the'], [7, 'orchestra'], [8, 'had'], [9, 'already'], [10, 'begun'], [11, 'to'], [12, 'play']];
        function init() {

            // Hide the success message
            $('#successMessage').hide();
            $('#successMessage').css({
                left: '580px',
                top: '250px',
                width: 0,
                height: 0
            });

            // Reset the game
            correctCards = 0;
            $('#cardPile').html('');
            $('#cardSlots').html('');
            $('#cardPile').height(35 * numbers.length);
            $('#cardSlots').height(35 * numbers.length);


            // Create the pile of shuffled cards
            numbers.sort(function () { return Math.random() - .5 });
            for (var i = 0; i < numbers.length; i++) {
                $('<div>' + numbers[1] + '</div>').data('number', numbers[1]).attr('id', 'card' + numbers[0]).appendTo('#cardPile').draggable({
                    containment: '#content',
                    stack: '#cardPile div',
                    cursor: 'move',
                    revert: true
                });
            }

            // Create the card slots
            var words = ['', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', ''];
            for (var i = 1; i <= numbers.length; i++) {
                $('<div>' + numbersunsorted[i - 1][1] + '</div>').data('number', numbersunsorted[i - 1][1]).appendTo('#cardSlots').droppable({
                    accept: '#cardPile div',
                    hoverClass: 'hovered',
                    drop: handleCardDrop
                });
            }

        }

        function handleCardDrop(event, ui) {
            var slotNumber = $(this).data('number');
            var cardNumber = ui.draggable.data('number');

            // If the card was dropped to the correct slot,
            // change the card colour, position it directly
            // on top of the slot, and prevent it being dragged
            // again
            if (slotNumber == cardNumber) {
                ui.draggable.addClass('correct');
                ui.draggable.draggable('disable');
                $(this).droppable('disable');
                ui.draggable.position({ of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' });
                ui.draggable.draggable('option', 'revert', false);
                correctCards++;
            }


            if (slotNumber != cardNumber) {
                ui.draggable.addClass('incorrect');
                //ui.draggable.draggable('enable');
                $(this).droppable('disable');
                ui.draggable.position({ of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' });
                ui.draggable.draggable('option', 'revert', false);

            }
            // If all the cards have been placed correctly then display a message
            // and reset the cards for another go

            if (correctCards == numbers.length) {
                $('<div>' + 'Your Score is: ' + correctCards + ' out of ' + numbers.length + '</div>').appendTo('#successMessage')
                $('#successMessage').show();
                $('#successMessage').animate({
                    left: '380px',
                    top: '200px',
                    width: '400px',
                    height: '100px',
                    opacity: 1
                });
            }
        }

        function showResult() {

            $('<div>' + 'Your Score is: ' + correctCards + ' out of ' + numbers.length + '</div>').appendTo('#Div1');
            $('#Div1').show();
            $('#Div1').animate({
                left: '380px',
                top: '200px',
                width: '400px',
                height: '100px',
                opacity: 1
            });
        }
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div id="content" style="width: 40%">
        <div id="cardPile" style="float: left;">
            <div id="card4" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                4</div>
            <div id="card1" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                1</div>
            <div id="card2" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                2</div>
            <div id="card5" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                5</div>
            <div id="card3" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                3</div>
            <div id="card6" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                6</div>
            <div id="card7" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                7</div>
            <div id="card8" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                8</div>
            <div id="card9" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                9</div>
            <div id="card10" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                10</div>
            <div id="card11" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                11</div>
            <div id="card12" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                12</div>
            <div id="card13" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                13</div>
            <div id="card14" class="ui-draggable" style="position: relative;">
                14</div>
        </div>
        <div id="cardSlots">
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                one</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                two</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                three</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                four</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                five</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                six</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                seven</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                eight</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                nine</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                ten</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                Eleven</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                Twelve</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                Thirteen</div>
            <div class="ui-droppable">
                Fourteen</div>
        </div>
        <div id="successMessage" style="display: none; left: 580px; top: 250px; width: 0px;
            height: 0px;">
            <button onclick="init()">
                Play Again</button>
        </div>
        <button   onmouseover="showResult()" onmouseout="$('#Div1').hide(); $('#Div1').html('');">
            Show Result</button>
        <div id="Div1" style="display: none; left: 580px; top: 250px; width: 0px;
            height: 0px;">
        </div>

    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

[Edited by hitech on 30-May-13 10:53]

hitech says

3 June 2013 at 7:55 am

Never mind. After reading a bit about JQuery ui, I came to know that we can store multiple values as data with each cell, and it can be the cell location.

$('<div>' + numbers['value'] + '</div>').data('number', { x: numbers['value'], y: numbers['index'] }).attr('id', 'card' + numbers['index']).appendTo('#cardPile').draggable({
                        containment: '#content',
                        stack: '#cardPile div',
                        cursor: 'move',
                        revert: true
                    });

 $('<div>' + userAnswer[i - 1]['value'] + '</div>').data('number', { x: numbersunsorted[i - 1]['value'], y: numbersunsorted[i - 1]['index'] }).appendTo('#cardSlots').droppable({
                        accept: '#cardPile div',
                        hoverClass: 'hovered',
                        drop: handleCardDrop

Then we can read it after dropping the card into the slot

var slotNumber = $(this).data('number').x;
var slotindex = $(this).data('number').y;
var cardNumber = ui.draggable.data('number').x;
var cardindex = ui.draggable.data('number').y;

Thanks

[Edited by hitech on 03-Jun-13 07:56]

noobie says

11 June 2013 at 1:25 am

Hi,

Your Tutorial is great but i really need help to create a game using this tutorial.

I need help to show out some random cards after the user has pulled and dropped to the correct slots.

Can anybody help me?

[Edited by noobie on 11-Jun-13 01:28]

Reply
noobie says

11 June 2013 at 2:19 am

@matt
I need help to show out some random card numbers after the user has pulled and dropped the first card number to the correct slots.

Reply
gutu says

25 June 2013 at 2:27 am

Hi experts,
I am a teacher in Austria and I developed some quizzes with 200 questions in a database for my students taking the great ideas of this example.
But some students using a surface RT can not use my quizzes because drag & drop does not work there and it is not possible to install an other browser like Mozilla or Chrome on a RT system!!!!

Do anybody know a solution of this problem?

Thanks from Salzburg
Uwe

Reply
WayneSmallman says

25 June 2013 at 5:33 am

It’s not often I comment these days, but the specificity and the comprehensiveness of this article qualifies such a response â€” you’ve given me precisely what I need.

Reply
robinh says

6 January 2014 at 1:46 am

Nice tutorial. Im trying to modify this drag and drop so that it is possible to drag and drop each number to multiple slots. Is this possible? Can anyone give me a hint?

Reply
Chris Ward says

6 January 2014 at 3:56 am

Hi robinh,

I’ve not posted on this thread for a while so forgive me if I am repeating anything said by others.

Anyway … I’ve done something similar to your requirements in a music notation application I wrote. In that I need to be able to drag from a palette of musical symbols onto the lines of a music stave. Most of the symbols can be placed multiple times, which seems to be what you want to do (kind of).

My first solution was to create a stack of each symbol and thus have many instances of each to drag.

However, I quickly realised that all I needed to do was REPLACE the symbol in the palette once I’d used (dragged) the previous instance.

There’s a setting to say “clone” the dragged object.

A quick search for an example yielded …

$( “.selector” ).draggable( “option”, “helper”, ‘clone’ );

See this for details :

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7878980/jquery-ui-drag-shape-but-keep-a-copy-of-the-original-shape

Hope this helps.

Chris

Reply
robinh says

6 January 2014 at 6:23 am

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your answer.
I have a modified version of this drag and drop where i also save data to mysql.

Tried to add helper “clone” but after it is dragged to a slot it is gone. Im not sure why this happens but maybe because I declare the div’s in the html file and not by js.

Will need to do some more testing on this.

Best regards
Robin

Reply
robinh says

6 January 2014 at 7:38 am

Hi again,

Im actually using this example:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19826075/jquery-drag-drop-form-hidden-value-inserting-into-php-mysql

Have not got it to work as i want yet.
Does anyone have a tips?

Code is here:

http://jsfiddle.net/qLhke/29/

Reply
JMDelfrate says

13 January 2014 at 9:38 am

Hello, first I want to congratulate you for your tutorial which was undoubtedly very well done! Secondly, I would like to do with my students a similar to this application, but it was recorded all in mysql example a student does something in the application and this is ready, while another home can continue. Hugs and success for all! I used the translator for not writing in English, I apologize if something went wrong. Jean Brazil.

Reply
alpio25 says

16 January 2014 at 11:09 am

Hi, i need my droppable fires multiple drop events, how can i do that? until now it just fires one. Please im desperate!!! 🙁

Reply
ncacace says

4 March 2014 at 11:59 pm

How would you drag a card that’s been locked in place back out again
and
either drag it to another drop target (draggable)
or
revert back to its previous position if unsuccessful (revert)

Reply
senthilmurugang says

14 March 2014 at 5:51 am

The tutorial is so nice and easy to understand step by step.

In number cards game, its uses numbers and functionality is place to correct place.

But i need the code for letters (a,b,c,d…) given some letters,
we need to frame a correct name.

for example

n t h l i s e

Using the above letters, i drag or move (left and right only) one by one letter and to form the correct name as following.

“senthil” is the correct name.

Please give a reply.

Any help will be appreciated.

Reply
chrishirst says

15 March 2014 at 8:24 pm

Letters are also numbers … ASCII code numbers.

Array elements can hold letters as well and are referenced by a number, so just as long as the letters are in the array in their correct final order it will work just the same.

[Edited by chrishirst on 15-Mar-14 20:24]

Reply
oldmankit says

31 March 2014 at 8:43 am

Thanks for this awesome tutorial. I’m not a programmer but found it really helpful.

I’ve got what I hope is a simple question. It’s about the array for numbers.

“Then we loop through each element in the numbers array, creating a div card element for each number. Inside the div we place the number, so that it appears on the card in the page. Once we’ve created the div object, we store the card’s number in a ‘number’ key inside the object by using jQuery’s data() method.”

Instead of the card number appearing on the draggable card, I would like some custom text. Is there a simple way to do that?

Reply
oldmankit says

1 April 2014 at 1:21 am

“Instead of the card number appearing on the draggable card, I would like some custom text. Is there a simple way to do that?”

I’ve been bashing my head against this all morning. If someone could tell me the answer, I’d be so grateful.

While I’ve been failing to make this happen, I’ve noticed that if you repeatedly refresh the game, about 10% of the time it will not randomise the cards. This is both on my local development version and also on the live preview (http://www.elated.com/res/File/articles/development/javascript/jquery/drag-and-drop-with-jquery-your-essential-guide/card-game.html). Just keep hitting refresh and you’ll see that fairly often it gives you all the dragable cards in non-randomised order (1-10).

Reply
oldmankit says

1 April 2014 at 1:33 am
If it helps, this is where I’ve got to so far.

If I change the numbers variable to be like this (there are only seven cards in my game):
```
var numbers = [ 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g' ];
```
then everything displays correctly, however, the cards won’t match. You cannot drop them in place.

If I make a new variable to store the text values, like this:
```
var test = [ 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g' ];
```
and change the code that creates the cards from this:
```
$('<div>' + numbers + '</div>')
```
to be this:
```
 $('<div>' + test + '</div>')
```
then the cards do not sort and they are also not droppable.
Reply

oldmankit says

1 April 2014 at 9:50 pm

OK, I’ve finally found the answer. When you create the numbers array, you need to give it multiple properties. Like this:

var numbers = [];
	numbers [ 0 ] = {x:1, y:'red'};
	numbers [ 1 ] = {x:2, y:'orange'};
	numbers [ 2 ] = {x:3, y:'yellow'};
	numbers [ 3 ] = {x:4, y:'green'};
	numbers [ 4 ] = {x:5, y:'sky blue'};
	numbers [ 5 ] = {x:6, y:'indigo'};
  	numbers [ 6 ] = {x:7, y:'violet'};

All you need to do then is define which property you want when you’re making the card stack:

  for ( var i=0; i<7; i++ ) {
    $('<div>' + numbers.y + '</div>').data( 'number', numbers.x ).attr( 'id', 'card1' ).appendTo( '#cardPile' ).draggable( {
      containment: '#content',
      stack: '#cardPile div',
      cursor: 'move',
      revert: true
    } );
  }

oldmankit says

8 April 2014 at 4:55 am
It looks like no-one is following this, but all the same, the following css will fix the cursor (which changes to ‘text select’ when hovering over cards/slots):
```
#cardSlots {
  cursor: default;
}

#cardPile {
	cursor: move;
}
```
Reply

oldmankit says

8 April 2014 at 5:05 am

An updated, improved version of the above:

/* Cursors */
#cardPile div {
	cursor: move;
}

#cardSlots {
  cursor: default;
}

.correct {
	cursor: default;
}

7thSky_001 says

20 May 2014 at 5:33 am
Hello,

http://davidmaillard.fr/projets/dragdrop/

I’m trying to run a test. The idea is to allow the card (draggable) to be able to position it on any cartridge (droppable).

But my problem is at the ‘revert’ option. Indeed, as the first movement is not enabled, the option ‘revert’ is enabled. Then after moving, the option is disabled.

Thereafter, if I want to move the card again and I do not put me on a cartridge, the cart does not return to its original location because the option ‘revert’ was previously off.
```
function handleCardDrop( event, ui ) {
		ui.draggable.position( { of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' } );
		ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', false );
	}
```
Have you an idea to reactivate the option ‘revert’ on the cart in order to allow more travel?

Thank you in advance 🙂
Reply
7thSky_001 says

20 May 2014 at 5:59 am
The solution was finally change this line:
```
ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', 'invalid' );
```
Reply
haroldvdschoot says

12 July 2014 at 8:44 am

hello,

first of all, i’am a newbie.

i am looking for this kind of tutorial but find this things only in flash.

this tutorial was almost the perfect example for me because i want to make a sort of quiz for my soccer team (the kids are 10 years old)

my idea was to drag de numbers to te correct places on te soccerfield

the “cardslots” must be placed on the page (soccerfield) in a 433 system

this is where its going wrong i cant place them in other places

can somebody help me or give me the right directions

thanks

ps sorry for my pour english

harold

Reply
mikebrisbane says

9 October 2014 at 7:52 pm

Hi, I have a situation where the object to be dragged and dropped is beneath a covering image. I don’t know how to move the focus of the drag from the top image to the draggable object below it, any ideas?

Any help much appreciated, thanks

Mike

PS: thanks for the plain english explanation of the jQuery, very helpful. I am using Edge Animate to try and get the interactivity working.

Reply
christobel says

25 October 2014 at 6:10 pm

This is such a fantastic tutorial thank you so much.

I am trying to create something very similar but instead of numbers/words I want to drag and drop an image.

I have played around with the code but have not have any luck, is anyone able to assist me.

Thanks

Reply
juscook10 says

11 January 2015 at 6:48 pm

I really like this tutorial, but I am trying to modify slightly and can’t figure out how. I would like to have the bottom row come up in a random order as well. How would I do this?

Reply
Daisy says

12 June 2015 at 5:41 pm

Hey,

Could you please provide me the github link for the cards problem. I couldn’t find it.

-Daisy

Reply

mayanksudden says

5 July 2015 at 9:39 am

Hi All,

I am using below code. Everything working fine except reset button. Code for reset button is:-

$(“#dvSource”).html( ” );
$(“#dvDrop”).html( ” );

When i am using this code – .html( ” ) which is working in provided cards game example, but in my case page doesn’t load and not show error in console. If we use this code –
.html( ), page is loading but reset button does not reset the page.

Please suggest how to reset the page.

Thanks In Advance.
Mayank

HTML CODE
———–

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
<style>
        
        #content 
		{
			margin: 80px 70px;
			text-align: center;
			-moz-user-select: none;
			-webkit-user-select: none;
			user-select: none;
		}
        
        #dvSource, #dvDrop 
		{
			width: 910px;
			height: 120px;
			padding: 20px;
			border: 2px solid #333;
			-moz-border-radius: 10px;
			-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
			border-radius: 10px;
			-moz-box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
			-webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
			box-shadow: 0 0 .3em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
		}
		#dvSource img, #dvDrop div 
		{
			 float: left;
			 width: 58px;	
			 height: 78px;
			 padding: 0px;
			 padding-top: 0px;
			 padding-bottom: 0;
			 border: 2px solid #333;
			 -moz-border-radius: 10px;
			 -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
			 border-radius: 10px;
			 margin: 0 0 0 10px;
			
		}
		#successMessage 
		{
			position: absolute;
			left: 580px;
			top: 250px;
			width: 0;
			height: 0;
			z-index: 100;
			background: #dfd;
			border: 2px solid #333;
			-moz-border-radius: 10px;
			-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
			border-radius: 10px;
			-moz-box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
			-webkit-box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
			box-shadow: .3em .3em .5em rgba(0, 0, 0, .8);
			padding: 20px;
		}
		
		
		
    </style>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.8.24/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <link href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.8.24/themes/blitzer/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />	
	<script>
	$(init);
	var correctCards = 0;
	function init() 
	{
	
	  // Hide the success message
		  $('#successMessage').hide();
		  $('#successMessage').css
			( 
				{
					left: '580px',
					top: '250px',
					width: 0,
					height: 0
				} 
			);
		
	     // Reset the game
			correctCards = 0;
			$("#dvSource").html();
			$("#dvDrop").html();
		 
	   	
		$("#dvSource img").draggable
		(
			{
				containment: '#content',
				stack: '#dvSource img',
				cursor: 'move',
				revert: true
			}
		)
		
		$("#dvDrop div").droppable
		(
			{
				accept: '#dvSource img', //We use the accept option with the selector "#cardPile div" to ensure that the slot will only accept our number cards, and not any other draggable element.
				hoverClass: 'hovered', //The hoverClass option adds a CSS class to a droppable when a draggable is hovered over it â€” we use this option to add a class of 'hovered' to the element, which we'll highlight using CSS.
				drop: handleCardDrop
			}
		)
	
	}
		function handleCardDrop( event, ui ) 
		{
			
			var DropId = $(this).attr( 'id' ); // output - Drop_1
			var DragId = ui.draggable.attr( 'id' );// output - Drag_1
			var aDrop = parseInt(DropId.slice(5)); // output - 1
			var bDrag = DragId.slice(5);// output - 1
			//alert(bDrag)	  
			if ( aDrop == bDrag ) 
			{
				
				//ui.draggable.addClass( 'correct' );
				ui.draggable.draggable( 'disable' );// this line decrease opacity and disable.
				$(this).droppable( 'disable' ); 
				ui.draggable.position( { of: $(this), my: 'left top', at: 'left top' } );
				ui.draggable.draggable( 'option', 'revert', false ); // this line drop the element.
				correctCards++;
			} 
			
			// If all the cards have been placed correctly then display a message
			// and reset the cards for another go
 
			if ( correctCards == 8 ) 
			{	
				$('#successMessage').show();
				$('#successMessage').animate
				( 
					{
					  left: '380px',
					  top: '200px',
					  width: '400px',
					  height: '100px',
					  opacity: 1
					} 
				);
			}
		}
	</script>
	<div id="content">
		<div id="dvSource">
			<img alt="" id="Drag_1" src="images/Chrysanthemum.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_2" src="images/Desert.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_3" src="images/Hydrangeas.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_4" src="images/Jellyfish.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_5" src="images/Koala.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_6" src="images/Lighthouse.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_7" src="images/Penguins.jpg" />
			<img alt="" id="Drag_8" src="images/Tulips.jpg" />
		</div>
		<hr/>
		 <div id="dvDrop">
		   <div id="Drop_1">One</div>
		   <div id="Drop_2">Two</div>
		   <div id="Drop_3">Three</div>
		   <div id="Drop_4">Four</div>
		   <div id="Drop_5">Five</div>
		   <div id="Drop_6">Six</div>
		   <div id="Drop_7">Seven</div>
		   <div id="Drop_8">Eight</div>
		</div>
		<div id="successMessage">
			<h2>You did it!</h2>
			<button onclick="init()">Play Again</button>
		</div>
	</div>
</body>
</html>

[Edited by chrishirst on 05-Jul-15 09:53]

chrishirst says

5 July 2015 at 9:57 am

By “Reset the page” you are meaning what exactly?

Reply
mayanksudden says

5 July 2015 at 10:23 am

Actually i want, when i click on playAgain button, everything should be reset. I did as per cards game example. I called the init() mehod but it’s not happing. You can also test the code which is above provided. I think below code is not supporting for reset the page.

$(“#dvSource”).html( ” );
$(“#dvDrop”).html( ” );

Please Provide solution.

Thanks In Advance.
Mayank
Skypeid – kanhaiya97

[Edited by mayanksudden on 05-Jul-15 10:24]

Reply
chrishirst says

5 July 2015 at 11:37 am

“Please Provide solution.”

That is NOT going to happen, the tutorials are here for YOU to learn from by fixing problems that you find along the process of developing them.

You might get a clue from me as to the possible problem, so you can find the solution for yourself.

Reply
mayanksudden says

5 July 2015 at 1:16 pm

Hi Chris,

could you explain that why used single Quotation mark after .html like below in cards game example.

$(‘#cardPile’).html( ” );
$(‘#cardSlots’).html( ” );

Thanks In Advance.
Mayank

Reply
chrishirst says

6 July 2015 at 11:44 am

It sets the content of the element to an empty string.

it is the jquery equivalent of;

document.getElementById(“ID”).innerHTML = “”;

Reply
dave362 says

16 July 2015 at 11:50 am

Hi there,

I keep finding myself revisiting this excellent tutorial, but can’t quite get the code to do what I want, which is slightly different from how you’ve done things.

What I would like to do is to not reveal whether the dragged answer is correct until all draggables have been placed. I would then like to have a ‘check answers’ button which reveals their score. Needless to say I’d rather not hint in anyway whether they have dropped the draggable on to the right droppable until the button is pressed.

If you could either respond to me directly or extend this article to show how to do what I’m after, I’d be ecstatic.

Keep up the good work!

Reply
luisangelo says

3 September 2015 at 9:54 am

anyone can help me? about creating a sql database designer tool? using a drag and drop method in Jquery?

Thanks in advance. 🙂

Reply
chrishirst says

3 September 2015 at 5:42 pm

You can’t. javascript cannot ‘talk’ to SQL servers.

Reply
plinioandrade says

8 June 2016 at 11:47 am

I created an user account just to leave a message here:
Your article is amazing! It’s so complete and well written. Congratulations!!!

Reply
kbsbeme says

15 August 2016 at 5:58 pm

Great piece of work. I want to use a version on a tablet. Can the drag and drop be made touch sensitive?

Reply
chrishirst says

16 August 2016 at 12:53 am

That is for the tablet to support, javascript (therefore jquery) has no direct hardware interaction at all.

Reply
kia_joy says

6 October 2016 at 2:17 pm

This has been really helpful to me and I’m just starting to play around in html and jquery. I am tying to fiddle around to see if I can replace the card numbers into pictures so that I can match the pictures to its corresponding name…

but i’m stuck… i’m guessing its some syntax problem that i’m getting… maybe the code i only made for number variables and not jpg objects..

I’m wondering how would I go about doing this:

// Create the pile of shuffled cards
var minpic = [ “Gypsum.jpg”, “RoseQuartz.jpg”, “Plagioclase.jpg”, “Muscovite.jpg”, “Flurorite.jpg”, “Talc.jpg”, “Halite.jpg”, “Quartz.jpg”, “Calcite.jpg”];
//minpic.sort( function() { return Math.random() – .5 } );

for ( var i=0; i<9; i++ ) {
$(‘<div>’ + minpic.src + ‘</div>’).data( ‘number’, minpic.src ).attr( ‘id’, ‘card’+minpic.src ).appendTo( ‘#cardPile’ ).draggable( {
containment: ‘#content’,
stack: ‘#cardPile div’,
cursor: ‘move’,
revert: true
} );
}

// Create the card slots
var minerals = [ ‘GYPSUM’, ‘ROSE QUARTZ’, ‘PLAGIOCLASE’, ‘MUSCOVITE’, ‘FLUORITE’, ‘TALC’, ‘HALITE’, ‘ROCK CRYSTAL QUARTZ’, ‘CALCITE’];
for ( var i=1; i<=9; i++ ) {
$(‘<div>’ + minerals[i-1] + ‘</div>’).data( ‘number’, i ).appendTo( ‘#cardSlots’ ).droppable( {
accept: ‘#cardPile div’,
hoverClass: ‘hovered’,
drop: handleCardDrop
} );
}

Reply

Drag-and-Drop with jQuery: Your Essential Guide

jQuery UI

Making elements draggable

Adding draggable options

Using a helper

Events: Responding to drags

Styling draggable elements

Droppables: Accepting draggable elements

Complete example: A drag-and-drop number cards game

Step 1: The markup

Step 2: The `init()` function

Step 3: The `handleCardDrop()` event handler function

Step 4: The CSS

All done!

Comments

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Contact Matt

jQuery UI

Making elements draggable

Adding draggable options

Using a helper

Events: Responding to drags

Styling draggable elements

Droppables: Accepting draggable elements

Complete example: A drag-and-drop number cards game

Step 1: The markup

Step 2: The init() function

Step 3: The handleCardDrop() event handler function

Step 4: The CSS

All done!

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Step 2: The `init()` function

Step 3: The `handleCardDrop()` event handler function