Web Programming Step by Step, 2nd Edition

Lecture 18: Events and Timers

Reading: 11.1

Except where otherwise noted, the contents of this document are Copyright 2012 Marty Stepp, Jessica Miller, and Victoria Kirst. All rights reserved. Any redistribution, reproduction, transmission, or storage of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited without the author's expressed written permission.

The six global DOM objects

Every Javascript program can refer to the following global objects:

The window object

the entire browser window; the top-level object in DOM hierarchy

• technically, all global code and variables become part of the window object
• properties:
  • document, history, location, name
• methods:
  • alert, confirm, prompt (popup boxes)
  • setInterval, setTimeout clearInterval, clearTimeout (timers)
  • open, close (popping up new browser windows)
  • blur, focus, moveBy, moveTo, print, resizeBy, resizeTo, scrollBy, scrollTo

Popup windows with window.open

window.open("http://foo.com/bar.html", "My Foo Window",
            "width=900,height=600,scrollbars=1");

• window.open pops up a new browser window
• THIS method is the cause of all the terrible popups on the web!
• some popup blocker software will prevent this method from running

The document object

the current web page and the elements inside it

• properties:
  • anchors, body, cookie, domain, forms, images, links, referrer, title, URL
• methods:
  • getElementById
  • getElementsByName, getElementsByTagName
  • querySelector, querySelectorAll
  • close, open, write, writeln

The location object

the URL of the current web page

• properties:
  • host, hostname, href, pathname, port, protocol, search
• methods:
  • assign, reload, replace

The navigator object

information about the web browser application

• properties:
  • appName, appVersion, browserLanguage, cookieEnabled, platform, userAgent
• Some web programmers examine the navigator object to see what browser is being used, and write browser-specific scripts and hacks:

  if (navigator.appName === "Microsoft Internet Explorer") { ...
  

  • (this is poor style; you usually do not need to do this)

The screen object

information about the client's display screen

• properties:
  • availHeight, availWidth, colorDepth, height, pixelDepth, width

The history object

the list of sites the browser has visited in this window

• properties:
  • length
• methods:
  • back, forward, go
• sometimes the browser won't let scripts view history properties, for security

Setting a timer

• both setTimeout and setInterval return an ID representing the timer
  • this ID can be passed to clearTimeout/Interval later to stop the timer

setTimeout example

<button id="clickme">Click me!</button>
<span id="output"></span>

window.onload = function() {
	document.getElementById("clickme").onclick = delayedMessage;
};

function delayedMessage() {
	document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "Wait for it...";
	setTimeout(sayBooyah, 5000);
}

function sayBooyah() {   // called when the timer goes off
	document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "BOOYAH!";
}

setInterval example

var timer = null;  // stores ID of interval timer

function delayMsg2() {
	if (timer == null) {
		timer = setInterval(rudy, 1000);
	} else {
		clearInterval(timer);
		timer = null;
	}
}

function rudy() {   // called each time the timer goes off
	document.getElementById("output").innerHTML += " Rudy!";
}

Passing parameters to timers

function delayedMultiply() {
	// 6 and 7 are passed to multiply when timer goes off
	setTimeout(multiply, 2000, 6, 7);
}
function multiply(a, b) {
	alert(a * b);
}

• any parameters after the delay are eventually passed to the timer function
  • doesn't work in IE; must create an intermediate function to pass the parameters
• why not just write this?

  setTimeout(multiply(6 * 7), 2000);
  

Common timer errors

• many students mistakenly write () when passing the function

  setTimeout(booyah(), 2000);
  setTimeout(booyah, 2000);
  
  setTimeout(multiply(num1 * num2), 2000);
  setTimeout(multiply, 2000, num1, num2);
  

  • what does it actually do if you have the () ?
  • it calls the function immediately, rather than waiting the 2000ms!