Get access to the DOM

Each element in the DOM has a corresponding JavaScript object. To be able to manipulate these objects, we first need to be able to access them. Thankfully, the DOM provides us with many different ways to do this; our starting point is the  document  object.

document.getElementsByTagName()

One of the methods made available by the DOM for gaining access to elements is  document.getElementsByTagName()  .  We pass the desired tag name to this method (e.g. "body," "h3," or "form") and it returns a collection of all of the elements within the DOM with that tag name.

Practice!

Head to CodePen Exercise P1CH2a and follow the instructions below.

This web page contains three articles inside <article> tags. In the JS editor, the constant articles contains a reference to a collection of all of these articles.

1. Use the constant paragraphs to store a reference to a collection of all <p> elements in the page.
   The getElementsByTagName()method returns an HTMLCollection. You don't need to worry about exactly what that means: what is important is that we can gain access to a specific member of the collection in the same way we would do so with an Array. N.B. We cannot use Array methods like push() or indexOf() on HTMLCollection objects as they are not actual Array objects.

2. Copy and paste the following code into the JS editor: 

   const firstArticle = articles[0];

3. Using a similar method, create a constant called secondParagraph that stores a reference to the second paragraph element.

Once you've given it a go, watch me code a solution and see how your approach compares:

document.getElementsByClassName()

Similarly, we can access a collection of all elements with a certain class using the method  document.getElementsByClassName() , passing it the class name we would like to access.

Practice!

Head to CodePen Exercise P1CH2b and follow the instructions below.

Both the page header and sidebar use the Bootstrap class text-white to, you guessed it, make the text inside them white.

1. Using the same logic as for getElementsByTagName(), try using getElementsByClassName() to store a reference to the collection of all elements with class text-white in a constant called whiteTextElements.

Once you've given it a go, watch me code a solution and see how your approach compares:

document.getElementById()

One of the most useful DOM methods,  document.getElementById() , returns the element with a given id .  As you can see from the name of the method, it will only return one element — this makes sense, though, as in a correctly formatted HTML document, there will only ever be one element with a given id .

Practice!

Head to CodePen Exercise P1CH2c and follow the instructions below.

1. Look at the content in the HTML editor. As you can see, various elements have id attributes, such as the page header and the heading contained within it, the articles, and the sidebar.

2. In the JS editor, create a constant called sidebar and, using getElementById(), use it to store a reference to the <aside> element.

Once you've given it a go, watch me code a solution and see how your approach compares:

document.querySelector()

The  document.querySelector()  method returns the first element in the DOM that matches the given selector(s).  You can use tag names, classes, id  attributes, or a mixture of the three:

• document.querySelector('p')  — returns the first  <p>  element

• document.querySelector('.text-white')  — returns the first element with class  text-white

• document.querySelector('#art-001')  — returns the element with  id  attribute  art-001

• document.queryselector('p.text-white')  — returns the first  <p>  element with class  text-white    

This method has a partner method, document.querySelectorAll() , which returns an  NodeList  containing all elements which match the given selector(s).

The DOM — one big family

As we discussed in the previous chapter, the DOM has a tree structure.  In fact, it is a family tree structure, defining the relationships between elements. There are DOM methods and properties which allow us to use these family relationships to navigate and select elements.  Here are a few:

• element.children  — an  HTMLCollection  containing all child elements of element

• element.parentElement  — element's parent element (any given element can only have up to one parent)

• element.nextElementSibling  +  element.previousElementSibling  — these allow us to iterate through a given level (between list items, for example)

Let's recap!

In this chapter, we have covered the following methods for accessing the DOM:

• getElementsByTagName()

• getElementsByClassName()

• getElementById()

• querySelector and querySelectorAll()

While there are other ways of traversing the DOM, the methods and properties shown here give us everything we need for most use cases.

Now that we have access to our various DOM elements, let's have a look at how we can modify them.