The getCoalescedEvents()
method of the PointerEvent
interface returns a sequence of PointerEvent
instances that were coalesced (merged) into a single pointermove
or pointerrawupdate
event. Instead of a stream of many pointermove
events, user agents coalesce multiple updates into a single event. This helps with performance as the user agent has less event handling to perform, but there is a reduction in the granularity and accuracy when tracking, especially with fast and large movements.
The getCoalescedEvents()
method lets applications access all un-coalesced position changes for precise handling of pointer movement data where necessary. Un-coalesced position changes are desirable in drawing applications, for instance, where having access to all events helps to build smoother curves that better match the movement of a pointer.
For an illustration of coalesced events, see Figure 7 in the specification.