The DOM Event Handling

THE DOM EVENT HANDLING

One of the keys to creating dynamic web pages is the use of event handlers. These allow you to execute specific script code in response to user or system initiated actions.Most events relate to the browser GUI, such as mouse movements, button or key clicks and updates to form inputs. These are usually tied to a specific page element. Others relate to browser actions such as when a document or image completes loading.Some objects have default actions defined for certain events, such as clicking on a hypertext link. The browser's normal action in that event is to load the URL associated with the link.

In any case, all events follow the same model. The DOM provides methods for capturing events so you can perform your own actions in response to them. It also provides an Event object which contains information specific to a given event that can be used by your event processing code.

Assigning Event Handlers

There are several ways to set up the capture of an event on an object using either HTML or scripting. In each case, you assign a function to handle the specific event when it occurs.