Summary

This chapter presented an overview of the Document object starting with the simple traditional object model supported under the earliest browsers followed briefly by the DHTML- related Document features and ending with the DOM standard. While it should be obvious that the DOM standard is much more powerful than previous approaches, its successful use is highly dependent upon the JavaScript programmer s knowledge of (X)HTML since nearly all its properties derive from it. Because of the limited number of canned examples presented in the chapter, it might not seem that Document is terribly useful. However, nothing could be further from the truth. With proper application of the Document object, there is little an adept programmer couldn t do as hinted to by the page editor, table editor, and the rewriting of page content and style dynamically. The next chapter will demonstrate the value of JavaScript in conjunction with the DOM by taking on a common and well- understood need of Web developers ”form validation.