AJAX

Accessing objects that are not in the form fields

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Join Date: Nov 2006

Posts: 21

Reputation: hkBattousai is an unknown quantity at this point

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hkBattousai hkBattousai is offline

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Accessing objects that are not in the form fields

Feb 10th, 2007

I want to ask if there is a way to access an obcect which is not in a form field. My textbook doesn't cover that topic. All the sample code in it is done with the form fields.
The picture above illustrates the DOM object model that is used in JavaScript. What I understand from the picture is there is no way to access a control which is not in a form field.

For example, is there any way to make the code below work?

 Help with Code Tags 
 JavaScript / DHTML / AJAX Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
<html>
    <body>
        <script language="javascript">
            function Function1() { document.TextBox.value = "You clicked the first button.";}
            function Function2() { document.TextBox.value = "You clicked the second button.";}
        </script>
        <input type="text"  name="TextBox"  value="This is the text box."><br>
        <input type="button" name="Button1" value="Button 1" onClick="Function1();">
        <input type="button" name="Button2" value="Button 2" onClick="Function2();">
    </body>
</html>
<html>
    <body>
        <script language="javascript">
            function Function1() { document.TextBox.value = "You clicked the first button.";}
            function Function2() { document.TextBox.value = "You clicked the second button.";}
        </script>
        <input type="text"  name="TextBox"  value="This is the text box."><br>
        <input type="button" name="Button1" value="Button 1" onClick="Function1();">
        <input type="button" name="Button2" value="Button 2" onClick="Function2();">
    </body>
</html>

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Join Date: Jul 2006

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MattEvans

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Re: Accessing objects that are not in the form fields

Feb 10th, 2007

The easiest way is to identify the inputs rather than name them:

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<html>
    <body>
        <script language="javascript">
            function Function1() { document.getElementById('TextBox').value = "You clicked the first button.";}
            function Function2() { document.getElementById('TextBox').value = "You clicked the second button.";}
        </script>
        <input type="text"  id="TextBox" name="TextBox"  value="This is the text box."><br>
        <input type="button" name="Button1" value="Button 1" onClick="Function1();">
        <input type="button" name="Button2" value="Button 2" onClick="Function2();">
    </body>
</html>

Those 'id' attributes have got to be unique.

There are other ways to get at objects that aren't id'ed; see this page:

http://www.pageresource.com/dhtml/ryan/part4-2.html

Plato forgot the nullahedron..