Document Object Model
DHTML is not a technology in and of itself; rather, it is the product of three related and complementary technologies: HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and script. To allow scripts and components to access features of HTML and CSS, the contents of the document were represented as objects in a programming model known as the Document Object Model (DOM).
The DOM API is the foundation of DHTML, providing a structured interface that allows you to access and manipulate virtually anything within the document. The HTML elements in the document are available as individual objects, meaning you can examine and modify an element and its attributes by reading and setting properties and by calling methods. The text between elements is also available through DOM properties and methods.
The DOM also provides access to user actions such as pressing a key and clicking the mouse. You can intercept and process these and other events by creating event handler functions and routines. The event handler receives control each time a given event occurs and can carry out any appropriate action, including using the DOM to change the document.
Read more about this topic: Dynamic HTML
Famous quotes containing the words document, object and/or model:
“... research is never completed ... Around the corner lurks another possibility of interview, another book to read, a courthouse to explore, a document to verify.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (18971973)
“My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time
To let the punishment fit the crime
The punishment fit the crime;”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18361911)
“... if we look around us in social life and note down who are the faithful wives, the most patient and careful mothers, the most exemplary housekeepers, the model sisters, the wisest philanthropists, and the women of the most social influence, we will have to admit that most frequently they are women of cultivated minds, without which even warm hearts and good intentions are but partial influences.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (18241899)