A Mouse Lock API has been under discussion on the W3 public-webapps list "Mouse Lock"(1) and earlier "Mouse Capture for Canvas"(2).

The primary goal is to enable use cases such as first person perspective 3D applications. This is done by providing scripted access to mouse movement data while locking the target of mouse events to a single element and removing the cursor from view.

I have been working to formalize the discussions into a draft specification: http://goo.gl/9G8pd, and have a work in progress prototype for WebKit | Chrome. I will publish a WIP patch when it is ready for more eyes. It will be developed behind a compile (and runtime) time flag.

I'd like to invite any specification discussion to the Mouse Lock thread (1), and WebKit implementation discussion here.

Cheers, -Vince

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1. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2011JulSep/thread.html#msg960

2. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2011JanMar/thread.html#msg437

W3 issue: http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9557
Firefox issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=633602
Chrome issue: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72754