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JavaScript

Rich Braymiller
Rich Braymiller
7,119 Points
Posted by Rich Braymiller
Rich Braymiller
7,119 Points

Javascript: The DOM

I hope this doesn't sound dumb, but I guess I don't understand the purpose of the DOM or what exactly it does...

2 Answers

Luke Bearden
Luke Bearden
15,597 Points
Luke Bearden
Luke Bearden
15,597 Points

The DOM stands for Document Object Model. It's how browsers understand the structure of a webpage. Javascript can be used to manipulate the DOM (i.e. alter the structure of the webpage) using the tags, ids, or classes associated with each DOM element.

The DOM looks something like this :

<html>
   <head></head>
   <body>
      <h1 class="title">Welcome to my webpage!</h1>
      <p>I hope you like my webpage.</p>
   </body>
</html>
Jonathan Grieve
MOD
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,253 Points
Jonathan Grieve
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,253 Points

I see it as the interface between the human and the browser. Drives the interactions that make interactive websites work. :-)