Document Object Model
For a rich user interface on a web application there is a lot of JavaScript to be handled and one has to be knowledgeable in Document Object Model (DOM). Simply put think of DOM as a tree structure representation of one single web page. A single web page screen is a document and is the parent element of this structure. Following it are the various elements that form the children and their offshoots like a tree family. Using this tree as base the DOM can be traversed, manipulated programmatically with the help JavaScript. DHTML is also a way of accessing and manipulating these elements. With DOM a standard script can be developed that will most likely work in any browser that implements W3C DOM. The recent versions of all popular browsers implement the W3C DOM and this can reduce a lot of browser incompatibility issues. If you are new to handling DOM through JavaScript here is a good starting point article “JavaScript and the Document Object Model” from IBM developerWorks.
