Beta-Labs: JavaScript HTML DOM

The Document Object Model, or DOM for short, is a platform and programming interface for HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) documents. It provides a data representation comprising all the objects, depicting the structure and content of the document on the web. Every webpage has its own DOM that represents the page so that programs can alter its structure, look, and content.

In simpler terms, when a browser loads a webpage, it creates a model of that page. This model is the DOM tree and is filed in the browser’s memory. It provides functionality globally to the document, including how to obtain the page details and create new elements in the document. Remember, DOM is neither a part of HTML nor JavaScript; it’s a separate set of rules.

With the HTML DOM, you can use JavaScript to build HTML documents, navigate their hierarchical structure, and add, modify, or delete elements and attributes or their content, and so on. Almost anything found in an HTML document can be accessed, changed, deleted, or added using the JavaScript with the help of HTML DOM.

To understand this more clearly, let's consider the following simple HTML document:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>My Page</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="div">
      <h1>Mobile OS</h1>
    </div>
      <ul>
        <li>Android</li>
        <li>iOS</li>
      </ul>   
    </body>
</html>

The above HTML document can be represented by the following DOM tree:

Every element, attribute, and text content in the HTML creates its own DOM node in the tree. A DOM tree consists of four main types of nodes:

Document node: This is added at the top of the tree and represents the entire page in the browser. As stated above, it is the starting point in the DOM tree; you need to navigate via the document node to access any other node in your DOM tree.
Element nodes: All the HTML elements like heading tags (<h1> to <h6>) and paragraph tags (<p>) in the page create an element node in the tree. You use these nodes to gain access to the elements’ attributes and text nodes.
Attribute nodes: When the opening tags in the HTML document contains attributes, the tree represents them as attribute nodes. These are not the children of the element nodes but a part of them.
Text nodes: Once you have access to the element node, you can reach the text content within that element, stored inside the text nodes of the DOM tree. These nodes cannot have child nodes. Thus, a text node always creates a new branch in the DOM tree, and no further branches come out of it.

Working with the DOM Tree in JavaScript DOM

To access and modify the DOM tree, you need to follow two steps:

· Locate the node representing the element you want.

· Works with the node’s content, child elements, and attributes.

We will discuss the various properties and methods in this tutorial based on the DOM tree given below.

Accessing the Elements

DOM Queries are the methods that find elements in the DOM tree. They may return one element or a collection of elements in a NodeList. You can select any element you desire from the NodeList with the help of an index number (starting with 0).

The code mentioned below is the HTML and CSS code, common to all the examples. All you would need to do is add the JavaScript code you want to execute.

Code:

    <html>
    <head>
    <!-- CSS styling -->
    <style type="text/css">
    #page{
    max-width: 400px;
    margin: 20px auto 20px auto;
    border: 3px solid aqua;
    }
    h1, h2, ul{
    padding: auto;
    }
    p{
    text-align: center;
    font-size: large;
    font-weight: bold;
    }
    </style>
    </head>
    <body>
    <div id="page">
    <h1 id="header">TO DO LIST</h1>
    <ul>
    <h2>Beta-Labs JavaScript Tutorial</h2>
    <li id="one" class="mandatory">Learning the concepts</li>
    <li id="two" class="mandatory">Practicing the codes</li>
    <li id="three">Taking quizzes</li>
    <li id="four">Solving Interview Questions</li>
    </ul>
    <!-- JavaScript code -->
    </div>
    </body>
    </html> 

Methods to Select an Individual Element Node

Following are the methods to select an individual element in the tree:

getElementById(‘id’): Uses the unique value of the element’s id attribute. The HTML must have an id attribute for the method to select it.

For example – getElementById(‘one’)

querySelector(‘css selector’): Uses a CSS selector, returns the first matching element.

For example – querySelector(‘h1’)

The code below combines these methods to add styling to the webpage.

JavaScript Code:

<script type="text/JavaScript">

   document.getElementById('one').style.color="maroon"; //change font color
      
   document.querySelector("h1").style.backgroundColor = "blue"; //change background color        

</script>

Output:

Methods to Select Multiple Elements (NodeLists)

There are three common ways to select multiple elements in the tree:

getElementsByClassName(): Selects all the elements that have a specified value for the class attribute.

For example – getElementsByClassName(‘mandatory’)

getElementsByTagName(): Selects all the elements that have the specified tag names.

For example – getElementsByTagName(‘h1’)

querySelectorAll(): Uses a CSS selector, returns all the matching elements.

For example – querySelectorAll(‘li.mandatory’)

The above methods always return a NodeList, even if the list contains only a single element. This fact is important to remember because you need to use square brackets [ ] if you want to access any element in the NodeList. The following code explains all the methods of returning a NodeList.

JavaScript Code:

<script type="text/JavaScript">

    var list_qs = document.querySelectorAll("li.mandatory"); //NodeList
    
    list_qs[0].style.backgroundColor = "blue"; //change background color
    
    var list_cn = document.getElementsByClassName('mandatory'); //NodeList
    
    list_cn[0].style.color="white"; //change font color
    
    var list_tn = document.getElementsByTagName('h1'); //NodeList
    
    list_tn[0].style.color="gray"; //change font color
    
</script>

Output:

Get/ update Element Content

For Text only: You can access and update the text in the containing element (and its children) with the help of two properties:

textContent

document.getElementById('p').textContent; (accessing)
document.getElementById('p1').textContent = newText; (updating)

innerText

document.getElementById('p').innerText; (accessing)
document.getElementById('p1').innerText = newText; (updating)

Both these properties replace the entire content of the element, including all the markup present. But you should avoid using innerText since it is not part of any standard. Also, this method slows the speed of content loading on the page.

For Text and Markup

The innerHTML property gets the content of the element and returns it as one long string, including the markup it contains. But you should be careful of where you use this property since there are some security risks associated with it.

For example

document.getElementById('p').innerHTML; (accessing)
document.getElementById('p1').innerHTML = newText; (updating)

The code below shows the three properties clearly. Run the code on your browser, and see the output on your own. Play with the code, try adding and removing things, and see what happens. This will help you understand how these properties work.

Code:

<html>
<head>
<!-- CSS styling -->
<style type="text/css">
p{
color: blue;
border: 1px solid aqua;
}
#page{
max-width: 350px;
margin: 20px auto 20px auto;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id = "page">
<h3>Accessing and Updating Element Content</h3>
<p id = "p"><em>Beta-Labs</em> tutorial</p>
<p><em id = "p1"></em></p>
<p><em id = "p2"></em></p>
<p><em id = "p3"></em></p>
<!-- JavaScript Code -->
<script>
document.write("<b>Accessing elements:</b></br>");
var x = document.getElementById('p').textContent;
document.write("textContent: " + x + "</br>");
var y = document.getElementById('p').innerText;
document.write("innerText: " + y + "</br>");
var z = document.getElementById('p').innerHTML;
document.write("innerHTML: " + z + "</br>");
//updating elements
document.getElementById('p1').textContent = "<strong>JavaScript</strong> tutorials";
document.getElementById('p2').innerText = "<strong>JavaScript</strong> quizzes";
document.getElementById('p3').innerHTML = "<strong>JavaScript</strong> interview questions";
</script>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Output:

Adding/ removing HTML Content

In the above example, we added an HTML <strong> tag in the page with the help of innerHTML property. To remove any text content, all you need to do is store an empty string in the element.

document.getElementById(‘p3’).innerHTML = “ ”; (empty string)

This will remove the text nodes of the containing and its child elements from the HTML content.

DOM Manipulation

Another technique to add/remove HTML content is DOM Manipulation. To add HTML content to your webpage, you need to follow the three steps discussed below:

· Create a new element using createElement().

· Give it content by creating a text node using createTextNode() and adding it to the element using the appendChild() method.

· Add the element to the DOM tree by finding the location and then using appendChild().

To remove an element from the webpage, the steps are as follows:

· Store the element you want to remove in a variable.

· Store the parent of that element in another variable.

· Remove the element from its containing element using the removeChild() method.

Let’s implement these methods with the help of a code. We will use the same HTML and CSS code we discussed at the beginning of this tutorial. All you need to do is change the JavaScript in your program. In this example, we will add a paragraph <p> tag in the page, and remove the <h1> tag from it.

Code:

<script type="text/JavaScript">

    //Adding new element
    var newEl = document.createElement('p'); //create element node
    var newText = document.createTextNode('Node added using DOM manipulation.'); //create text node
    
    newEl.appendChild(newText); //add text node to element node
    var position = document.getElementById("page"); //find the position where you want to add the node
    position.appendChild(newEl); //add element in that position
    
    //Removing an element
    var removeEl = document.getElementById('header'); //store the element you want to remove
    var containerEl = document.getElementById('page'); //find the element which contains the above element
    containerEl.removeChild(removeEl); //remove the element
</script>

Output:

Traversing between Element Nodes

You have the facility to navigate between related element nodes. The techniques available for this purpose include:

· parentNode: Selects the parent of the current element node (returns a single element).

· previousSibling/ nextSibling: Selects the previous or next sibling from the tree.

· firstChild/ lastChild: Selects the first or last child of the current element.

Pages

Sunday, October 4, 2020

JavaScript HTML DOM

Document node: This is added at the top of the tree and represents the entire page in the browser. As stated above, it is the starting point in the DOM tree; you need to navigate via the document node to access any other node in your DOM tree.

Element nodes: All the HTML elements like heading tags (<h1> to <h6>) and paragraph tags (<p>) in the page create an element node in the tree. You use these nodes to gain access to the elements’ attributes and text nodes.

Attribute nodes: When the opening tags in the HTML document contains attributes, the tree represents them as attribute nodes. These are not the children of the element nodes but a part of them.

Text nodes: Once you have access to the element node, you can reach the text content within that element, stored inside the text nodes of the DOM tree. These nodes cannot have child nodes. Thus, a text node always creates a new branch in the DOM tree, and no further branches come out of it.

Methods to Select an Individual Element Node

Methods to Select Multiple Elements (NodeLists)

Get/ update Element Content

For Text only: You can access and update the text in the containing element (and its children) with the help of two properties:

For Text and Markup

Adding/ removing HTML Content

DOM Manipulation

Traversing between Element Nodes