Interactions

Utility classes that change how users interact with contents of a website.

Text selection

Change the way in which the content is selected when the user interacts with it.

This paragraph will be entirely selected when clicked by the user.

This paragraph has default select behavior.

This paragraph will not be selectable when clicked by the user.

html
<p class="user-select-all">This paragraph will be entirely selected when clicked by the user.</p>
<p class="user-select-auto">This paragraph has default select behavior.</p>
<p class="user-select-none">This paragraph will not be selectable when clicked by the user.</p>

Pointer events

Boosted provides .pe-none and .pe-auto classes to prevent or add element interactions.

This link can not be clicked.

This link can be clicked (this is default behavior).

This link can not be clicked because the pointer-events property is inherited from its parent. However, this link has a pe-auto class and can be clicked.

html
<p><a href="#" class="pe-none" tabindex="-1" aria-disabled="true">This link</a> can not be clicked.</p>
<p><a href="#" class="pe-auto">This link</a> can be clicked (this is default behavior).</p>
<p class="pe-none"><a href="#" tabindex="-1" aria-disabled="true">This link</a> can not be clicked because the <code>pointer-events</code> property is inherited from its parent. However, <a href="#" class="pe-auto">this link</a> has a <code>pe-auto</code> class and can be clicked.</p>

The .pe-none class (and the pointer-events CSS property it sets) only prevents interactions with a pointer (mouse, stylus, touch). Links and controls with .pe-none are, by default, still focusable and actionable for keyboard users. To ensure that they are completely neutralized even for keyboard users, you may need to add further attributes such as tabindex="-1" (to prevent them from receiving keyboard focus) and aria-disabled="true" (to convey the fact they are effectively disabled to assistive technologies), and possibly use JavaScript to completely prevent them from being actionable.

If possible, the simpler solution is:

  • For form controls, add the disabled HTML attribute.
  • For links, remove the href attribute, making it a non-interactive anchor or placeholder link.

CSS

Sass utilities API

Interaction utilities are declared in our utilities API in scss/_utilities.scss. Learn how to use the utilities API.

"user-select": (
  property: user-select,
  values: all auto none
),
"pointer-events": (
  property: pointer-events,
  class: pe,
  values: none auto,
),