DHTML Document Object Model

Examples

Note: Most of the DHTML examples require Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher.

Element access
How to access an element and change the style.

Attribute change
How to access an image element and change the "src" attribute.

innertext access
How to access and change the inner text of an element.

DOM

HTML 4.0 introduced the Document Object Model, which gives us access opportunity to every element in the document. It contains no functions or fancy layout tricks, it is more like a map of all the elements, and we use this map to access the elements.

How to access the elements

A scripting language is needed. JavaScript is the most browser compatible scripting language, so we use JavaScript. To make an element available for the DOM, the element must define the id attribute.

<html>
<body>
<h1 id="header">My header</h1>
<script type="text/javascript">
header.style.color="red"
</script>
</body>
</html>

The script changes the style of the header element, and produces this output.

My header

The DHTML Object Model

Object		Explanation
window	methods properties	The window object is the top object in the DHTML Object Model, and gives you information about the window and the frames.
document	methods properties collections	The document object represents the HTML document, and gives you access to the HTML elements.
navigator	properties	The navigator object gives you information about the user's browser.
event	properties collections	The event object gives you information about events that occur.

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