jQuery Mousemove: trigger on change of 5px - events

Question

For a number of technical reasons, I'm implementing my own 'draggable' feature on jQuery, rather than using jQuery UI, and I'm using mousedown and mousemove events to listen for the user trying to drag an element.
It works good so far, I would just like to fire up the mousemove event every 5 px of movement, rather than pixel by pixel. I've tried coding a simple:
$('#element').bind('mousemove', function(e) {
if(e.pageX % 5 == 0) {
// Do something
}
});
However, the movement is not stable every 5 pixels, and sometimes if you move the mouse too fast, it will skip several steps. I think this is because when moving the mouse very fast, jQuery will not trigger the event every pixel.
Do you guys know how to trigger the event every 5 pixels?
Thanks a lot,
Antonio

Answer 1

Your code does not take into account where your drag started. e.pageX will just give you page coordinates, not differences. You need to check for the change in distance moved.
This post is pretty relevant.
Here is the basic code:
$(document).mousemove(function(event) {
var startingTop = 10,
startingLeft = 22,
math = Math.round(Math.sqrt(Math.pow(startingTop - event.clientY, 2) +
Math.pow(startingLeft - event.clientX, 2))) + 'px';
$('span').text('From your starting point(22x10) you moved: ' + math);
});
EDIT: Now I think I understand what the OP is talking about. I used the above code to come up with this fiddle. It tracks your current position in relation to the Top Left of the screen and it checks to see if your difference is > 5 pixles.
New script:
var oldMath = 0;
$(document).mousemove(function(event) {
var startingTop = 10,
startingLeft = 22,
math = Math.round(Math.sqrt(Math.pow(startingTop - event.clientY, 2) +Math.pow(startingLeft - event.clientX, 2))) + 'px';
$('#currentPos').text('you are at :' + math);
if(Math.abs(parseInt(math) - oldMath) > 5){
//you have moved 5 pixles, put your stuff in here
$('#logPos').append('5');
//keep track of your position to compare against next time
oldMath = parseInt(math);
}
});​