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Represents the HTML document in a given browser window.

Members Table

The following table lists the members exposed by the document object.

Attributes/Properties

Show: Attributes/Properties Collections Events Methods Objects

Property Description activeElement Gets the object that has the focus when the parent document has focus. alinkColor Sets or gets the color of all active links in the document. bgColor Deprecated. Sets or retrieves a value that indicates the background color behind the object. charset Sets or retrieves the character set used to encode the object. compatMode Gets a value that indicates whether standards-compliant mode is switched on for the object. cookie Sets or gets the string value of a cookie. defaultCharset Gets the default character set from the current regional language settings. designMode Sets or gets a value that indicates whether the document can be edited. dir Sets or retrieves a value that indicates the reading order of the object. doctype Gets the document type declaration associated with the current document. documentElement Gets a reference to the root node of the document. domain Sets or gets the security domain of the document. expando Sets or retrieves a value indicating whether arbitrary variables can be created within the object. fgColor Sets or gets the foreground (text) color of the document. fileCreatedDate Retrieves the date the file was created. fileModifiedDate Retrieves the date the file was last modified. fileSize Retrieves the file size. implementation Gets the implementation object of the current document. lastModified Gets the date that the page was last modified, if the page supplies one. linkColor Sets or gets the color of the document links. parentWindow Gets a reference to the container object of the window. protocol Sets or retrieves the protocol portion of a URL. readyState Retrieves a value that indicates the current state of the object. referrer Gets the URL of the location that referred the user to the current page. uniqueID Retrieves an autogenerated, unique identifier for the object. URL Sets or gets the URL for the current document. URLUnencoded Gets the URL for the document, stripped of any character encoding. vlinkColor Sets or gets the color of the links that the user has visited. XMLDocument Retrieves a reference to the XML XSLDocument Retrieves a reference to the top-level node of the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) document. Collection Description all Returns a reference to the collection of elements contained by the object. anchors Retrieves a collection of all a objects that have a name and/or id property. Objects in this collection are in HTML source order. applets Retrieves a collection of all applet objects in the document. childNodes Retrieves a collection of HTML Elements and TextNode objects that are direct descendants of the specified object. embeds Retrieves a collection of all embed objects in the document. forms Retrieves a collection, in source order, of all form objects in the document. frames Retrieves a collection of all window objects defined by the given document or defined by the document associated with the given window. images Retrieves a collection, in source order, of img objects in the document. links Retrieves a collection of all a objects that specify the HREF property and all area objects in the document. namespaces Retrieves a collection of namespace objects. scripts Retrieves a collection of all script objects in the document. styleSheets Retrieves a collection of styleSheet objects representing the style sheets that correspond to each instance of a link or style object in the document. Event Description onactivate Fires when the object is set as the active element. onbeforeactivate Fires immediately before the object is set as the active element. onbeforecut Fires on the source object before the selection is deleted from the document. onbeforedeactivate Fires immediately before the activeElement is changed from the current object to another object in the parent document. onbeforeeditfocus Fires before an object contained in an editable element enters a UI-activated state or when an editable container object is control selected. onbeforepaste Fires on the target object before the selection is pasted from the system clipboard to the document. onclick Fires when the user clicks the left mouse button on the object. oncontextmenu Fires when the user clicks the right mouse button in the client area, opening the context menu. oncontrolselect Fires when the user is about to make a control selection of the object. oncut Fires on the source element when the object or selection is removed from the document and added to the system clipboard. ondblclick Fires when the user double-clicks the object. ondeactivate Fires when the activeElement is changed from the current object to another object in the parent document. ondrag Fires on the source object continuously during a drag operation. ondragend Fires on the source object when the user releases the mouse at the close of a drag operation. ondragenter Fires on the target element when the user drags the object to a valid drop target. ondragleave Fires on the target object when the user moves the mouse out of a valid drop target during a drag operation. ondragover Fires on the target element continuously while the user drags the object over a valid drop target. ondragstart Fires on the source object when the user starts to drag a text selection or selected object. ondrop Fires on the target object when the mouse button is released during a drag-and-drop operation. onfocusin Fires for an element just prior to setting focus on that element. onfocusout Fires for the current element with focus immediately after moving focus to another element. onhelp Fires when the user presses the F1 key while the browser is the active window. onkeydown Fires when the user presses a key. onkeypress Fires when the user presses an alphanumeric key. onkeyup Fires when the user releases a key. onmousedown Fires when the user clicks the object with either mouse button. onmousemove Fires when the user moves the mouse over the object. onmouseout Fires when the user moves the mouse pointer outside the boundaries of the object. onmouseover Fires when the user moves the mouse pointer into the object. onmouseup Fires when the user releases a mouse button while the mouse is over the object. onmousewheel Fires when the wheel button is rotated. onmove Fires when the object moves. onmoveend Fires when the object stops moving. onmovestart Fires when the object starts to move. onpaste Fires on the target object when the user pastes data, transferring the data from the system clipboard to the document. onpropertychange Fires when a property changes on the object. onreadystatechange Fires when the state of the object has changed. onresizeend Fires when the user finishes changing the dimensions of the object in a control selection. onresizestart Fires when the user begins to change the dimensions of the object in a control selection. onselectionchange Fires when the selection state of a document changes. onstop Fires when the user clicks the Stop button or leaves the Web page. Method Description attachEvent Binds the specified function to an event, so that the function gets called whenever the event fires on the object. clear Not currently supported. close Closes an output stream and forces the sent data to display. createAttribute Creates an attribute object with a specified name. createComment Creates a comment object with the specified data. createDocumentFragment Creates a new document. createElement Creates an instance of the element for the specified tag. createEventObject Generates an event object to pass event context information when you use the fireEvent method. createStyleSheet Creates a style sheet for the document. createTextNode Creates a text string from the specified value. detachEvent Unbinds the specified function from the event, so that the function stops receiving notifications when the event fires. elementFromPoint Returns the element for the specified x coordinate and the specified y coordinate. execCommand Executes a command on the current document, current selection, or the given range. focus Causes the element to receive the focus and executes the code specified by the onfocus event. getElementById Returns a reference to the first object with the specified value of the ID attribute. getElementsByName Gets a collection of objects based on the value of the NAME attribute. getElementsByTagName Retrieves a collection of objects based on the specified element name. hasFocus Gets a value indicating whether the object currently has focus. mergeAttributes Copies all read/write attributes to the specified element. open Opens a new window and loads a document specified by a given URL. Also, opens a new window that uses the url parameter and the name parameter to collect the output of the write method and the writeln method. queryCommandEnabled Returns a Boolean value that indicates whether a specified command can be successfully executed using execCommand, given the current state of the document. queryCommandIndeterm Returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the specified command is in the indeterminate state. queryCommandState Returns a Boolean value that indicates the current state of the command. queryCommandSupported Returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the current command is supported on the current range. queryCommandValue Returns the current value of the document, range, or current selection for the given command. recalc Recalculates all dynamic properties in the current document. releaseCapture Removes mouse capture from the object in the current document. setActive Sets the object as active without setting focus to the object. write Writes one or more HTML expressions to a document in the specified window. writeln Writes one or more HTML expressions, followed by a carriage return, to a document in the specified window. Element Object Description BODY body Specifies the beginning and end of the document body. implementation Contains information about the modules supported by the object. location Contains information about the current URL. selection Represents the active selection, which is a highlighted block of text or other elements in the document that a user or a script can carry out some action on. TITLE title Contains the title of the document.

Remarks

Use the document object to examine, modify, or add content to an HTML document and to process events within that document. In a Web page, the document object can be referenced through the document property of the window object or it can be referenced directly.

The document object is available at all times in the primary document, but it does not exist for the HTML Component (HTC) files used in lightweight Dynamic HTML (DHTML) behaviors. This is because lightweight behaviors can only be defined if they do not use a document object in the HTC file. As a result, lightweight behaviors run faster and more efficiently than normal behaviors. Lightweight DHTML behaviors can, however, access the document object of the primary document in the same way as normal DHTML behaviors.

The ondocumentready event notifies DHTML behaviors that the document object is available from the primary Web page containing the behavior. Once ondocumentready has fired, a behavior can begin to manipulate the primary document object.

It is possible for the script in a behavior to reference the document object in the HTC file or the primary document. When coding script in an HTC file, use element.document to refer to the document object in the primary document.

Examples

This example uses the document object to check for a document title and displays the title (if not null) in a message box.

if (document.title!="")
    alert("The title is " + document.title)

This example shows an event handler function that displays the current position of the mouse, relative to the upper-left corner of the document, in the browser's status window.

<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>Report mouse moves</TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript">
function reportMove()
{
    window.status = "X=" + window.event.x + " Y=" + window.event.y;
}
</SCRIPT>
<BODY onmousemove="reportMove()">
<H1>Welcome!</H1>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Standards Information

There is no public standard that applies to this object.

Applies To

CUSTOM, window