DataTransferItemList: add() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The DataTransferItemList.add() method creates a new DataTransferItem using the specified data and adds it to the drag data list. The item may be a File or a string of a given type. If the item is successfully added to the list, the newly-created DataTransferItem object is returned.

Syntax

add(data, type)
add(file)

Parameters

data: A string representing the drag item's data.
type: A string of the drag item's type. Some example types are text/html and text/plain.
file: A File object. No type needs to be given in this case.

Return value

A DataTransferItem containing the specified data. If the drag item couldn't be created (for example, if the associated DataTransfer object has no data store), null is returned.

Exceptions

NotSupportedError DOMException: Thrown if the string data parameter was provided, and the list already contains an item whose kind is "Plain Unicode string" and whose type is equal to the specified type parameter.

Examples

This example shows the use of the add() method.

HTML

html

<div>
  <p
    id="source"
    ondragstart="dragstart_handler(event);"
    ondragend="dragend_handler(event);"
    draggable="true">
    Select this element, drag it to the Drop Zone and then release the selection
    to move the element.
  </p>
</div>
<div
  id="target"
  ondrop="drop_handler(event);"
  ondragover="dragover_handler(event);">
  Drop Zone
</div>

CSS

css

div {
  margin: 0em;
  padding: 2em;
}
#source {
  color: blue;
  border: 1px solid black;
}
#target {
  border: 1px solid black;
}

JavaScript

function dragstart_handler(ev) {
  console.log("dragStart");
  // Add this element's id to the drag payload so the drop handler will
  // know which element to add to its tree
  const dataList = ev.dataTransfer.items;
  dataList.add(ev.target.id, "text/plain");
  // Add some other items to the drag payload
  dataList.add("<p>Paragraph…</p>", "text/html");
  dataList.add("http://www.example.org", "text/uri-list");
}

function drop_handler(ev) {
  console.log("Drop");
  ev.preventDefault();
  const data = event.dataTransfer.items;
  // Loop through the dropped items and log their data
  for (let i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    if (data[i].kind === "string" && data[i].type.match("^text/plain")) {
      // This item is the target node
      data[i].getAsString((s) => {
        ev.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(s));
      });
    } else if (data[i].kind === "string" && data[i].type.match("^text/html")) {
      // Drag data item is HTML
      data[i].getAsString((s) => {
        console.log(`… Drop: HTML = ${s}`);
      });
    } else if (
      data[i].kind === "string" &&
      data[i].type.match("^text/uri-list")
    ) {
      // Drag data item is URI
      data[i].getAsString((s) => {
        console.log(`… Drop: URI = ${s}`);
      });
    }
  }
}

function dragover_handler(ev) {
  console.log("dragOver");
  ev.preventDefault();
  // Set the dropEffect to move
  ev.dataTransfer.dropEffect = "move";
}

function dragend_handler(ev) {
  console.log("dragEnd");
  const dataList = ev.dataTransfer.items;
  for (let i = 0; i < dataList.length; i++) {
    dataList.remove(i);
  }
  // Clear any remaining drag data
  dataList.clear();
}

Result

Result link

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard # dom-datatransferitemlist-add-dev

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser