Netscape 6, Part II: Animation

This column is the second part of our series on Netscape 6. In this column we'll cover animation topics. Animation with DHTML can become very messy as far as browser-independency is concerned. Browsers use different syntax and different semantics for their physical property names. One browser may use top while another may use pixelTop. One may use a property to denote position with respect to the window, while another may opt to reference the entire document. Netscape 6 boasts about being DOM-compliant. The DOM is critical for browser-independent scripting. Netscape 6 does bring us closer to the ultimate panacea, but there are still some differences between Internet Explorer 5.5's DOM and Netscape 6's DOM.

We chose to cover several topics related to animation. We'll give you first some hints on how to find elements on the page. The innerHTML property was not originally part of the DOM, but both IE and Netscape 6 support it. We'll show you how take advantage of it to create attractive effects on your page. We'll demonstrate the essence of animation: moving elements right and left, up and down the page. Since animation is done with coordinates, we'll cover how to set, get, and initialize them. No animation can be complete without hiding and revealing elements. We'll teach you about visibility, and the differences between IE 5 and Netscape 6. We'll also discuss an alternative to the BLINK tag, which Netscape wants to retire sometimes in the future.

In this column, you will learn:

• How to extract all elements with a given tag
• How to set the content of any HTML tag
• How to move objects horizontally
• How to move objects vertically
• How to set, get, initialize, and manipulate coordinates
• How to set, get, initialize, and manipulate element visibility
• How to mimic blinking

Next: How to extract all elements with a given tag