Document Object
By: aathishankaran Printer Friendly Format
The window object is the highest-level object for built-in
JavaScript objects; in this role, it serves as a container, but it does not have
any content that is associated with it, per se. It leaves the content of a Web
document up to the document object. The document object serves as the JavaScript
equivalent of an HTML document. In this role, the document object is a container
for all HTML related objects that are associated with both the <HEAD> and
<BODY> tags. The document object gets its title property from the
<TITLE> tag (located within the <HEAD> section) and several
color-related properties from the <BODY> section, which is shown here:
Syntax
<BODY [BACKGROUND="backgroundImage"][BGCOLOR="backgroundColor"]
[TEXT="foregroundColor"]
[LINK="unfollowedLinkColor"]
[ALINK="activatedLinkColor"]
[VLINK="followedLinkColor"]
[onLoad="methodName"]
[onUnload="methodName"]>
</BODY>
Although onLoad and onUnload events are associated with the
<BODY>tag, they are events of the window object, not the document object.
The document object is critical as you' work with JavaScript and HTML because
all the action happens on a Web page within a document. Because of this scope,
you need to refer to the document object when you are accessing an object within
it. For example, if you want to access a form object named invoiceForm, you must
preface your reference with document:
document.invoiceForm.submit()
If you do not, JavaScript is unable to locate the object
within the page.
Changing
Document Attribute Colors
Color settings for documents are usually set by a user in
his browser configuration, but JavaScript gives you the ability to change these
color settings programmatically. The document object has five properties that
reflect the colors of various attributes within the document alinkColor, bgColor,
fgColor, linkColor, and vlinkColor
Property | Description | HTML Tag |
alinkColor |
Color of an activated link(after mouse down, before mouse up) |
ALINK= |
bgColor |
Background color of document |
BGCOLOR= |
fgColor |
Foreground color of document |
TEXT= |
IinkColor |
Color of unvisited links |
UNK= |
vlinkColor |
Color of visited links |
VUNK= |
These properties are expressed either as string literals or as hexadecimal RGB
triplet values. For example, if you wanted to assign a background color of
chartreuse to a document, you could use the string literal chartreuse:
document.bgColor
= chartreuse
You could also use the equivalent hexadecimal RGB triplet
value:
document.bgColor
= "7fffOO"
Link Object
HTML links are the core elements of any Web document,
enabling you to jump to another Web page with the click of a mouse. The location
of the document is immaterial; it could be on the same Web server or thousands
of miles away. All that matters is that the URL is valid. The link object is the
JavaScript equivalent of the hypertext link, which is defined in HTML syntax as
<A
HREF=locationOrURL [NAME="objectName"] [TARGET="windowName"]
[onClick="'methodName"][onMouseOver="methoQName"]>
linkText </A>
The
link object has several properties that are the same as the parameters for the
location object. These include hash, host, hostname, href, pathname, port,
protocol, and search.
Anchor Object
You most often use a link object to jump to another Web
page or another location within the current document. Within the current
document, the link locates a specific place in the text called an anchor, which
is defined in HTML syntax as
<A [HREF=locationOrURL] NAME="objectName" [TARGET="windowName"]>
anchorText
</ A>
To be politically correct, you could say that the anchor object is "JavaScript challenged" be-cause you can do little in JavaScript with anchors. By itself, an anchor object has no properties, methods, or events. The only way you can really use them in JavaScript is through the anchors array of the document object. You can use the anchors array to determine the number of anchors in a document and iterate through them as desired.
Image Object
The image object is new to Netscape Navigator 3.0. If you
spend any time at all on the Web, you quickly realize how important graphics are
to the Web. You can hardly go to a page without seeing several graphics
scattered throughout. New to Netscape Navigator 3.0, the image object represents
an HTML image, which is defined in the following format:
<IMG
[NAME="objectName"]' SRC="Location" [LOWSRC="Location"][HEIGHT="Pixels"|"Value"%]
[WIDTH="Pixels"|"Value"%] [HSPACE="Pixels"]
[VSPACE="Pixels"] [BORDER="Pixels"] [ALIGN="left"|"right"| "top"|"absmiddle"|"absbottom"|"texttop"|"middle"|"baseline"|"bottom"][ISMAP] [USEMAP="Location#MapName"] [onAbort="methodName"][onError="methodName"] [onLoad="methodName"]>
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