Dynamic HTML is an extension of HTML that allows Web authors and developers to create pages that dynamically update their content and interact with the user without relying on scripts or server-side processing. When you create a DHTML application, the resulting pages use the Dynamic HTML technology in Internet Explorer 4.x. Dynamic HTML's object model allows you to interact with HTML pages in new ways — for example, manipulating their properties, methods, and events, and exercising finer control over the layout of the pages.
A summary of key features of Dynamic HTML is presented in the following topics:
An HTML page consists of a series of objects that are called elements. Elements on a page can include simple items such as headings, paragraphs of text, and images, or more complicated items such as form fields, or tables and their rows, columns, and cells. On the surface, the page’s elements correspond very closely to the items in a Visual Basic form. However, in past versions of HTML you could not access properties and events on all of these objects: only certain elements were available to be programmed.
With Dynamic HTML, you can now access and manipulate every element on a Web page. This allows you to treat an HTML page much like a form — you can change the attributes for any element, write code or script that performs actions on it, and access its methods and events.
For More Information See "The Dynamic HTML Object Model in Visual Basic" in this chapter for more information on the objects available in DHTML applications. See "Dynamic HTML" in the Internet Client SDK for more information on features of Dynamic HTML. See "Programming with Objects” in the Visual Basic Programmer's Guide for more information on the basics of object programming.