GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual

18.5: Input Events

The Emacs command loop reads a sequence of input events that represent keyboard or mouse activity. The events for keyboard activity are characters or symbols; mouse events are always lists. This section describes the representation and meaning of input events in detail.

Function: eventp object

This function returns non-nil if event is an input event.

• Keyboard Events Ordinary characters--keys with symbols on them.
• Function Keys Function keys--keys with names, not symbols.
• Mouse Events Overview of mouse events.
• Click Events Pushing and releasing a mouse button.
• Drag Events Moving the mouse before releasing the button.
• Button-Down Events A button was pushed and not yet released.
• Repeat Events Double and triple click (or drag, or down).
• Motion Events Just moving the mouse, not pushing a button.
• Focus Events Moving the mouse between frames.
• Misc Events Other events window systems can generate.
• Event Examples Examples of the lists for mouse events.
• Classifying Events Finding the modifier keys in an event symbol. Event types.
• Accessing Events Functions to extract info from events.
• Strings of Events Special considerations for putting keyboard character events in a string.