DOM Coercion Rules

In order of precedence, createDOM coerces given arguments to DOM nodes using the following rules:

1. Functions are called with a this and first argument of the parent node and their return value is subject to the following rules (even this one).
2. undefined and null are ignored.
3. If MochiKit.Iter is loaded, iterables are flattened (as if they were passed in-line as nodes) and each return value is subject to these rules.
4. Values that look like DOM nodes (objects with a .nodeType > 0) are .appendChild'ed to the created DOM fragment.
5. Strings are wrapped up with document.createTextNode
6. Objects that have a .dom(node) or .__dom__(node) method are called with the parent node and their result is coerced using these rules. (MochiKit 1.4+).
7. Objects that are not strings are run through the domConverters MochiKit.Base.AdapterRegistry (see registerDOMConverter). The adapted value is subject to these same rules (e.g. if the adapter returns a string, it will be coerced to a text node).
8. If no adapter is available, .toString() is used to create a text node.

Creating DOM Element Trees

createDOM provides you with an excellent facility for creating DOM trees that is easy on the wrists. One of the best ways to understand how to use it is to take a look at an example:

var rows = [
    ["dataA1", "dataA2", "dataA3"],
    ["dataB1", "dataB2", "dataB3"]
];
row_display = function (row) {
    return TR(null, map(partial(TD, null), row));
}
var newTable = TABLE({'class': 'prettytable'},
    THEAD(null,
        row_display(["head1", "head2", "head3"])),
    TFOOT(null,
        row_display(["foot1", "foot2", "foot3"])),
    TBODY(null,
        map(row_display, rows)));

This will create a table with the following visual layout (if it were inserted into the document DOM):

head1	head2	head3
dataA1	dataA2	dataA3
dataB1	dataB2	dataB3
foot1	foot2	foot3

Corresponding to the following HTML:

<table class="prettytable">
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <td>head1</td>
            <td>head2</td>
            <td>head3</td>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tfoot>
        <tr>
            <td>foot1</td>
            <td>foot2</td>
            <td>foot3</td>
        </tr>
    </tfoot>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>dataA1</td>
            <td>dataA2</td>
            <td>dataA3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>dataB1</td>
            <td>dataB2</td>
            <td>dataB3</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>

DOM Context

In order to prevent having to pass a window and/or document variable to every MochiKit.DOM function (e.g. when working with a child window), MochiKit.DOM maintains a context variable for each of them. They are managed with the withWindow and withDocument functions, and can be acquired with currentWindow() and currentDocument()

For example, if you are creating DOM nodes in a child window, you could do something like this:

withWindow(child, function () {
    var doc = currentDocument();
    appendChildNodes(doc.body, H1(null, "This is in the child!"));
});

Note that withWindow(win, ...) also implies withDocument(win.document, ...).

DOM Gotchas

Performance Tradeoff:

DOM is much easier to get correct and more flexible than working directly with markup as strings. Modifying innerHTML is still the fastest way to make document changes.

Internet Explorer:

Internet Explorer's DOM implementation is quite poor in comparison to the other popular implementations. In order to avoid memory leaks due to circular references, you should use MochiKit.Signal.connect for all of your event handling needs. Additionally, when creating tables with DOM, it is required to use a TBODY tag (see Creating DOM Element Trees for an example of this).

Constants

NBSP:

A string containing "\u00a0", i.e. the Unicode non-breaking space character.

Functions

$(id[, ...]):

An alias for getElement(id[, ...])

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

addElementClass(element, className):

Ensure that the given element has className set as part of its class attribute. This will not disturb other class names. element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

addLoadEvent(func):

Note that addLoadEvent can not be used in combination with MochiKit.Signal if the onload event is connected. Once an event is connected with MochiKit.Signal, no other APIs may be used for that same event.

This will stack window.onload functions on top of each other. Each function added will be called after onload in the order that they were added.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

addToCallStack(target, path, func[, once]):

Note that addToCallStack is not compatible with MochiKit.Signal. Once an event is connected with MochiKit.Signal, no other APIs may be used for that same event.

Set the property path of target to a function that calls the existing function at that property (if any), then calls func.

If target[path]() returns exactly false, then func will not be called.

If once is true, then target[path] is set to null after the function call stack has completed.

If called several times for the same target[path], it will create a stack of functions (instead of just a pair).

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

appendChildNodes(node[, childNode[, ...]]):

Append children to a DOM element using the DOM Coercion Rules.

node:

A reference to the DOM element to add children to (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

childNode...:

All additional arguments, if any, will be coerced into DOM nodes that are appended as children using the DOM Coercion Rules.

returns:

The given DOM element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

insertSiblingNodesBefore(node[, siblingNode[, ...]]):

Insert children into the DOM structure using the DOM Coercion Rules.

node:

A reference to the DOM element you want to insert children before (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

siblingNode...:

All additional arguments, if any, will be coerced into DOM nodes that are inserted as siblings using the DOM Coercion Rules.

returns:

The parent of the given DOM element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+

insertSiblingNodesAfter(node[, siblingNode[, ...]]):

Insert children into the DOM structure using the DOM Coercion Rules.

node:

A reference to the DOM element you want to insert children after (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

siblingNode...:

All additional arguments, if any, will be coerced into DOM nodes that are inserted as siblings using the DOM Coercion Rules.

returns:

The parent of the given DOM element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+

createDOM(name[, attrs[, node[, ...]]]):

Create a DOM fragment in a really convenient manner, much like Nevow`s [1] stan [2].

Partially applied versions of this function for common tags are available as aliases:

• A
• ARTICLE
• ASIDE
• BR
• BUTTON
• CANVAS
• CAPTION
• DD
• DIV
• DL
• DT
• FIELDSET
• FIGURE
• FIGCAPTION
• FOOTER
• FORM
• H1
• H2
• H3
• H4
• H5
• H6
• HEADER
• HGROUP
• HR
• IFRAME
• IMG
• INPUT
• LABEL
• LEGEND
• LI
• LINK
• MARK
• METER
• NAV
• OL
• OPTGROUP
• OPTION
• P
• PRE
• PROGRESS
• SCRIPT
• SECTION
• SELECT
• SPAN
• STRONG
• STYLE
• TABLE
• TBODY
• TD
• TEXTAREA
• TFOOT
• TH
• THEAD
• TR
• TT
• UL

See Creating DOM Element Trees for a comprehensive example.

name:

The kind of fragment to create (e.g. 'span'), such as you would pass to document.createElement.

attrs:

An object whose properties will be used as the attributes (e.g. {'style': 'display:block'}), or null if no attributes need to be set.

See updateNodeAttributes for more information.

For convenience, if attrs is a string, null is used and the string will be considered the first node.

node...:

All additional arguments, if any, will be coerced into DOM nodes that are appended as children using the DOM Coercion Rules.

returns:

A DOM element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

createDOMFunc(tag[, attrs[, node[, ...]]]):

Convenience function to create a partially applied createDOM function. You'd want to use this if you add additional convenience functions for creating tags, or if you find yourself creating a lot of tags with a bunch of the same attributes or contents.

See createDOM for more detailed descriptions of the arguments.

tag:

The name of the tag

attrs:

Optionally specify the attributes to apply

node...:

Optionally specify any children nodes it should have

returns:

function that takes additional arguments and calls createDOM

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

currentDocument():

Return the current document DOM Context. This will always be the same as the global document unless withDocument or withWindow is currently executing.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

currentWindow():

Return the current window DOM Context. This will always be the same as the global window unless withWindow is currently executing.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

emitHTML(dom[, lst]):

Convert a DOM tree to an Array of HTML string fragments. This should be used for debugging/testing purposes only.

The DOM property innerHTML or cloneNode(true) method should be used for most purposes.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

escapeHTML(s):

Make a string safe for HTML, converting the usual suspects (<, >, ", &) to their HTML character entity equivalents.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

focusOnLoad(element):

Note that focusOnLoad can not be used in combination with MochiKit.Signal if the onload event is connected. Once an event is connected with MochiKit.Signal, no other APIs may be used for that same event.

This adds an onload event to focus the given element.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

formContents(elem=document.body):

Search the DOM tree, starting at elem, for any elements with a name and value attribute. Return a 2-element Array of names and values suitable for use with MochiKit.Base.queryString.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

getElement(id[, ...]):

A small quick little function to encapsulate the getElementById method. It includes a check to ensure we can use that method.

If the id isn't a string, it will be returned as-is.

Also available as $(...) for convenience and compatibility with other JavaScript frameworks.

If multiple arguments are given, an Array will be returned.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

getElementsByTagAndClassName(tagName, className, parent=document):

Returns an array of elements in parent that match the tag name and class name provided. If parent is a string, it will be looked up with getElement.

If tagName is null or "*", all elements will be searched for the matching class.

If className is null, all elements matching the provided tag are returned.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

getFirstElementByTagAndClassName(tagName, className, parent=document):

Return the first element in parent that matches the tag name and class name provided. If parent is a string, it will be looked up with getElement.

If tagName is null or "*", all elements will be searched for the matching class.

If className is null, the first element matching the provided tag will be returned.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+

getFirstParentByTagAndClassName(elem, tagName='*', className=null):

Returns the first parent of elem that matches the tag name and class name provided. If elem is a string, it will be looked up using getElement.

If tagName is null or "*", all elements will be searched for the matching class.

If className is null, the first element matching the provided tag name will be returned.

If no match is found, null will be returned.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+

getNodeAttribute(node, attr):

Get the value of the given attribute for a DOM element without ever raising an exception (will return null on exception).

node:

A reference to the DOM element to update (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

attr:

The name of the attribute

Note that it will do the right thing for IE, so don't do the class -> className hack yourself.

returns:

The attribute's value, or null

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

hasElementClass(element, className[, ...]):

Return true if className is found on the element. element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

isChildNode(node, maybeParent):

Determine whether node is a child node or decendant node of maybeParent. Returns true if so, and false if not. A node is considered a child node of itself for the purposes of this function.

If either node or maybeParent are strings, the related nodes will be looked up with getElement.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+

registerDOMConverter(name, check, wrap[, override]):

Register an adapter to convert objects that match check(obj, ctx) to a DOM element, or something that can be converted to a DOM element (i.e. number, bool, string, function, iterable).

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

removeElement(node):

Remove and return node from a DOM tree.

node:

the DOM element (or string id of one) to be removed

returns

The removed element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

removeElementClass(element, className):

Ensure that the given element does not have className set as part of its class attribute. This will not disturb other class names. element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

removeEmptyTextNodes(node):

Remove all text node children that contain only whitespace from node. Useful in situations where such empty text nodes can interfere with DOM traversal.

node:

the DOM element (or string id of one) to remove whitespace child nodes from.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+

replaceChildNodes(node[, childNode[, ...]]):

Remove all children from the given DOM element, then append any given childNodes to it (by calling appendChildNodes).

node:

A reference to the DOM element to add children to (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

childNode...:

All additional arguments, if any, will be coerced into DOM nodes that are appended as children using the DOM Coercion Rules.

returns:

The given DOM element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

scrapeText(node[, asArray=false]):

Walk a DOM tree in-order and scrape all of the text out of it as a string.

If asArray is true, then an Array will be returned with each individual text node. These two are equivalent:

assert( scrapeText(node) == scrapeText(node, true).join("") );

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

setElementClass(element, className):

Set the entire class attribute of element to className. element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

setNodeAttribute(node, attr, value):

Set the value of the given attribute for a DOM element without ever raising an exception (will return null on exception). If setting more than one attribute, you should use updateNodeAttributes.

node:

A reference to the DOM element to update (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

attr:

The name of the attribute

Note that it will do the right thing for IE, so don't do the class -> className hack yourself.

Also note that the DOM element object property with the same name will also be set if not already identical to the attribute value. This is needed to compensate for weird attributes that distinguish between the property and attribute values (i.e. the "value" attribute for fields).

value:

The value of the attribute, may be an object to be merged (e.g. for setting style).

returns:

The given DOM element or null on failure

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

swapDOM(dest, src):

Replace dest in a DOM tree with src, returning src.

dest:

a DOM element (or string id of one) to be replaced

src:

the DOM element (or string id of one) to replace it with, or null if dest is to be removed (replaced with nothing).

returns:

a DOM element (src)

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

swapElementClass(element, fromClass, toClass):

If fromClass is set on element, replace it with toClass. This will not disturb other classes on that element. element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

toggleElementClass(className[, element[, ...]]):

Toggle the presence of a given className in the class attribute of all given elements. All elements will be looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

toHTML(dom):

Convert a DOM tree to a HTML string using emitHTML. This should be used for debugging/testing purposes only.

The DOM property innerHTML or cloneNode(true) method should be used for most purposes.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

updateNodeAttributes(node, attrs):

Update the attributes of a DOM element from a given object.

node:

A reference to the DOM element to update (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

attrs:

An object whose properties will be used to set the attributes (e.g. {'class': 'invisible'}), or null if no attributes need to be set. If an object is given for the attribute value (e.g. {'style': {'display': 'block'}}) then MochiKit.Base.updatetree will be used to set that attribute.

Note that it will do the right thing for IE, so don't do the class -> className hack yourself, and it deals with setting "on..." event handlers correctly.

Also note that the DOM element object property with the same name will also be set if not already identical to the attribute value. This is needed to compensate for weird attributes that distinguish between the property and attribute values (i.e. the "value" attribute for fields).

returns:

The given DOM element

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

withWindow(win, func):

Call func with the window DOM Context set to win and the document DOM Context set to win.document. When func() returns or throws an error, the DOM Context will be restored to its previous state.

The return value of func() is returned by this function.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

withDocument(doc, func):

Call func with the doc DOM Context set to doc. When func() returns or throws an error, the DOM Context will be restored to its previous state.

The return value of func() is returned by this function.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1+

Style Functions

These functions were previously available in MochiKit.DOM, but have been moved to MochiKit.Style in recent versions. Function aliases remain for backwards compability.

computedStyle(htmlElement, cssProperty, mozillaEquivalentCSS):

Looks up a CSS property for the given element. The element can be specified as either a string with the element's ID or the element object itself.

cssProperty:

MochiKit 1.3.1 expects camel case, e.g. backgroundColor. MochiKit 1.4+ expects CSS selector case, e.g. background-color, but will accept camel case for backwards-compatibility.

mozillaEquivalentCSS:

MochiKit 1.3.1 expects selector case. MochiKit 1.4+ ignores this argument.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, deprecated in favor of MochiKit.Style.getStyle in 1.4+

elementDimensions(element):

Return the absolute pixel width and height (including padding and border, but not margins) of element as an object with w and h properties, or undefined if element is not in the document. element may be specified as a string to be looked up with getElement, a DOM element, or trivially as an object with w and/or h properties.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, deprecated in favor of MochiKit.Style.getElementDimensions in 1.4+

elementPosition(element[, relativeTo={x: 0, y: 0}]):

Return the absolute pixel position of element in the document as an object with x and y properties, or undefined if element is not in the document. element may be specified as a string to be looked up with getElement, a DOM element, or trivially as an object with x and/or y properties.

If relativeTo is given, then its coordinates are subtracted from the absolute position of element, e.g.:

var elemPos = elementPosition(elem);
var anotherElemPos = elementPosition(anotherElem);
var relPos = elementPosition(elem, anotherElem);
assert( relPos.x == (elemPos.x - anotherElemPos.x) );
assert( relPos.y == (elemPos.y - anotherElemPos.y) );

relativeTo may be specified as a string to be looked up with getElement, a DOM element, or trivially as an object with x and/or y properties.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, deprecated in favor of MochiKit.Style.getElementPosition in 1.4+

getViewportDimensions():

Return the pixel width and height of the viewport as an object with w and h properties. element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.getViewportDimensions in 1.4+

hideElement(element, ...):

Partial form of setDisplayForElement, specifically:

partial(setDisplayForElement, "none")

For information about the caveats of using a style.display based show/hide mechanism, and a CSS based alternative, see Element Visibility.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.hideElement in 1.4+

makeClipping(element):

Ensure that element.style.overflow = 'hidden'. If element is a string, then it will be looked up with getElement.

Returns the original values of overflow, overflow-y and overflow-y so that they may be restored with undoClipping(element, overflow).

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+, moved to MochiKit.Style.makeClipping in 1.4.1+

makePositioned(element):

Ensure that element.style.position is set to "relative" if it is not set or is "static". If element is a string, then it will be looked up with getElement.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+, moved to MochiKit.Style.makePositioned in 1.4.1+

setElementDimensions(element, dimensions[, units='px']):

Sets the dimensions of element in the document from an object with w and h properties.

node:

A reference to the DOM element to update (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

dimensions:

An object with w and h properties

units:

Optionally set the units to use, default is px

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.setElementDimensions in 1.4+

setElementPosition(element, position[, units='px']):

Sets the absolute position of element in the document from an object with x and y properties.

node:

A reference to the DOM element to update (if a string is given, getElement(node) will be used to locate the node)

position:

An object with x and y properties

units:

Optionally set the units to use, default is px

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.setElementPosition in 1.4+

setDisplayForElement(display, element[, ...]):

Change the style.display for the given element(s). Usually used as the partial forms:

• showElement(element, ...)
• hideElement(element, ...)

Elements are looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are acceptable.

For information about the caveats of using a style.display based show/hide mechanism, and a CSS based alternative, see Element Visibility.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.setDisplayForElement in 1.4+

setOpacity(element, opacity):

Sets opacity for element. Valid opacity values range from 0 (invisible) to 1 (opaque). element is looked up with getElement, so string identifiers are also acceptable.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.setOpacity in 1.4+

showElement(element, ...):

Partial form of setDisplayForElement, specifically:

partial(setDisplayForElement, "block")

For information about the caveats of using a style.display based show/hide mechanism, and a CSS based alternative, see Element Visibility.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.showElement in 1.4+

undoClipping(element, overflow):

Restore the setting of element.style.overflow set by makeClipping(element). If element is a string, then it will be looked up with getElement.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+, moved to MochiKit.Style.undoClipping in 1.4.1+

undoPositioned(element):

Restore the setting of element.style.position set by makePositioned(element). If element is a string, then it will be looked up with getElement.

Availability:

Available in MochiKit 1.4+, moved to MochiKit.Style.undoPositioned in 1.4.1+

Style Objects

These objects are available in MochiKit 1.3.1, but have been moved to MochiKit.Style in 1.4+.

Coordinates(x, y):

Constructs an object with x and y properties. obj.toString() returns something like {x: 0, y: 42} for debugging.

Availability: Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.Coordinates in 1.4+

Dimensions(w, h):

Constructs an object with w and h properties. obj.toString() returns something like {w: 0, h: 42} for debugging.

Availability: Available in MochiKit 1.3.1, moved to MochiKit.Style.Dimensions in 1.4+