What You Will Learn

In the upcoming chapters of this tutorial, you will learn how to:

• Modify the content of HTML elements
• Alter the style (CSS) of HTML elements
• Respond to HTML DOM events
• Add and remove HTML elements

What is the DOM?

The DOM, a W3C standard, provides a consistent way to access documents. It is defined as a “platform- and language-neutral interface allowing programs and scripts to dynamically interact with a document’s content, structure, and style.”

The W3C DOM standard is divided into three key parts:

• Core DOM: A standard model for all document types
• XML DOM: A standard model for XML documents
• HTML DOM: A standard model for HTML documents

What is the HTML DOM?

The HTML DOM is a standardized object model and programming interface for HTML. It defines:

• HTML elements as objects
• The properties of all HTML elements
• Methods to access all HTML elements
• Events associated with all HTML elements

In other words, the HTML DOM provides a standard way to retrieve, modify, add, or remove HTML elements.