Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 4th Edition

15DOM Extensions

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Understanding the Selectors API
• Using HTML5 DOM extensions

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Even though the DOM is a fairly well-defined API, it is also frequently augmented with both standards-based and proprietary extensions to provide additional functionality. Prior to 2008, almost all of the DOM extensions found in browsers were proprietary. After that point, the W3C went to work to codify some of the proprietary extensions that had become de facto standards into formal specifications.

The two primary standards specifying DOM extensions are the Selectors API and HTML5. These both arose out of needs in the development community and a desire to standardize certain approaches and APIs. There is also a smaller Element Traversal specification with additional DOM properties. Proprietary extensions still exist, even though these two specifications, especially HTML5, cover a large number of DOM extensions. The proprietary extensions are also covered in this chapter.

All content in this chapter is supported by all major browsers meaning all vendor releases that have meaningful web traffic—unless otherwise stated.

SELECTORS API

One of the most popular capabilities of JavaScript libraries is the ability to retrieve a number of DOM elements ...