Dynamic HTML in Internet Explorer

You can find information about Microsoft's Dynamic HTML at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/dhtml_node_entry.asp . Dynamic HTML in the Internet Explorer is extensive and can nearly turn web pages into entire applications that run without round trips back to the server. Here are the key features of Dynamic HTML in the Internet Explorer:

• Document Object Model (DOM). As we know, all the elements in the Microsoft DOM can be accessed at runtime and changed. That alone brings your web pages alive .

• Dynamic content. Using Dynamic HTML in the Internet Explorer, you can create new elements and attributes on-the-fly , modifying your pages by inserting and deleting elements.

• Dynamic styles. You can change any style sheet attribute, including color and font, in your code. As you'll see in this chapter, for example, you can change text's color or size when a cursor moves over it.

• Absolute positioning. You also can use style sheet positioning to move elements and even create animated effects.

• Special ActiveX controls. As we'll see in this chapter, the Internet Explorer comes with ActiveX controls that support visual effects such as animation, visual filters, and visual transitions.

• Data binding. As we'll discuss in the next chapter, you can create data-bound documents that display, manipulate (for example, sort or filter), and update data in the browser.

• Behaviors. As we'll also see in the next chapter, behaviors represent HTML applications that enable you to separate code from data in web pages, and that enable you add new "behaviors" to the elements in your web page work.

As you can see, the support for Dynamic HTML is extensive in the Internet Explorer. I'll take a look at what's available in the Netscape Navigator next.