Adobe Extending Dreamweaver CS4 - Manual (Page 107)

101 EXTENDING DREAMWEAVER CS4
The Dreamweaver Document Object Model
Properties and methods of HTML
The following table lists the properties and methods of HTML elements in Dreamweaver, along with their return
values or explanations. A bullet (•) marks read-only properties.
Property or method Return value
nodeType • Node.ELEMENT_NODE
parentNode • The parent tag. If this is the HTML tag, the document object returns.
childNodes • A NodeList that contains all the immediate children of the tag.
previousSibling • The sibling node immediately prior to this one. For example, in an HTML
document the
previousSibling for the body element is the head
element.
nextSibling • The sibling node immediately following this one. For example, in an HTML
document the
nextSibling for the head element is the body element.
(Any script , style , or meta tags in the head would be child nodes of the
head element.)
tagName • The HTML tagName for the element, such as IMG , A , or DIV . The value
returned is always in uppercase letters.
attrName A string that contains the value of the specified tag attribute.The
tag.attrName cannot be used if the attrName attribute is a reserved word
in the JavaScript language (for example, class ). In this case, use
getAttribute() and setAttribute() .
innerHTML The source code that is contained between the opening tag and the closing
tag. For example, in the code
Hello, World!
,
p.innerHTML returns Hello, World! . If you write to this
property, the DOM tree immediately updates to reflect the new structure of
the document. (This property is defined in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0
DOM, but is not part of DOM Level 1 or 2.)
outerHTML The source code for this tag, including the tag. For the previous example
code,
p.outerHTML returns
Hello, World!
. If you
write to this property, the DOM tree immediately updates to reflect the new
structure of the document. (This property is defined in the Microsoft Internet
Explorer 4.0 DOM, but is not part of DOM Level 1 or 2.)
getAttribute(attrName)
The value of the specified attribute if it is explicitly specified; null otherwise.
getTranslatedAttribute(attrName)
The translated value of the specified attribute or the same value that
getAttribute() returns if the attribute’s value is not translated. (This
property is not included in DOM Level 1; it was added to Dreamweaver 3 to
support attribute translation.)
setAttribute(attrName, attrValue)
Does not return a value. Sets the specified attribute to the specified value
example,
img.setAttribute("src", "image/roses.gif") .
removeAttribute(attrName)
Does not return a value. Removes the specified attribute and its value from
the HTML for this tag.
getElementsByTagName(tagName)
A NodeList that can be used to step through child tags of type tagName (for
example, IMG , DIV , and so on).
If the tagName argument is “layer”, the function returns all LAYER and
ILAYER tags and all absolutely positioned elements.
If the tagName argument is “input”, the function returns all form elements. (If
a name attribute is specified for one or more tagName objects, it must begin
with a letter, which the HTML 4.01 specification requires, or the length of the
array that this function returns is incorrect.)