
My document.all Javascript/CSS code doesn't work?
While going through my book Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS for a class I was teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder, I realized that a gremlin crawled into the page proofs and somehow I ended up with IE-specific DOM reference code to show how CSS and Javascript can interrelate, rather than the approved standards-based approach.
The code I have works with Microsoft's Internet Explorer document object model (the DOM is basically the parse tree that holds the layout of the entire Web page being rendered. Every container, every letter, every style) and, surprisingly, with the new Firefox browser, but doesn't work with Netscape 7.x or Apple's Safari browser. This is clearly Not A Good Thing. Fortunately, the fix isn't too difficult at all... Here's a typical snippet from the book: <div id="hideme" style="visibility:hidden"> This block of text will be hidden until you click on the word "display" lower on the page.</div> Now you'll want to probably <span onclick="document.all.hideme.style.visibility='visible'"> display</span> the hidden message too.This works fine in Internet Explorer, but it really should be using the Javascript getElementByID call rather than a reference to the non-portable "all" document element. That would change the code thusly: each time you see "all.id" you should instead use "getElementByID("id")":
<div id="hideme" style="visibility:hidden">
This block of text will be hidden until you click
on the word "display" lower on the page.</div>
Now you'll want to probably <span
onclick="document.getElementByID('hideme').style.visibility='visible'">
display</span> the hidden message too.
I apologize to readers who are a bit confused by this. Fortunately, the fix is straightforward and we'll have it fixed in the next printing of the book too, of course.
If you want to get really tricky, you can have the <span> tag emulate the typical characteristics of an anchor tag too, so visitors get a visually consistent cue to click, by adding the following style attribute: style="font-color:#00f;text-decoration:underline;cursor:pointer;"Now if I could just exorcise all the gremlins in the book production process... :-)
Help others find this article at Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Simpy.
Categorized:
HTML and CSS
(Article 3776)
Tagged: Previous: What's the best way to figure out if an eBay seller is legit? Next: What download managers allow resumption of interrupted downloads? Subscribe!
Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. Ironically Guru Dave your revised code still doesn't "seem" to work. I tried it in a few browsers (netscape 7, IE 6) and it mostly produced "document.getElementbyID is not a function" error. I'm a novice at javascript myself but to me the code looks right, but browser seems to be saying the that it cannot be used within the onclick like this? Calling the same thing through a function works fine for example... Posted by: Joel at February 23, 2006 5:37 AMOh dear - as Joel points out, your code is still wrong. It should be getElementById not getElementByID Posted by: Robert at December 29, 2006 1:12 PMI have a lot to say, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
|
![]()
Search
Find just the answers you seek from among our 1700+ free tech support articles by using our Lijit search engine.
Help!
Subscribe to
Ask Dave Taylor!
Free Updates!
Sign up and get free weekly updates and special offers on books, seminars, workshops and more.
Articles and Reviews
Auctions and Online Shopping Blogs and RSS Feeds Building Web site traffic Business and Management Cell Phones and Mobile Phones CGI Scripts and Web Site Programming Computer and Internet Basics d) None of the Above HTML and CSS Mac OS X Help MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Social Network Help Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engine Optimization Shell Script Programming Sony PSP, MP3 Players, Etc. The Writing Business Unix and Linux Help Video Game Tips and Help Windows Help
Recent Entries
Join the List!
Book Links
|