Simple JavaScript question

I, Brian · 01-02-2005, 07:01 AM

Hi there -

I have a piece of HTML code I want to insert into the main template of a site using Javascript, but I'm not quite sure what I need to do.

I figure I'll need to call up the script using something like:

Code:

   <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.4" SRC="/js/html.js" TYPE='text/javascript'></SCRIPT>

I tried putting the HTML code within:

Code:

   document.write(' HTMLcode ');

and saving it as a .js document, but that didn't work.

As you can probably etll, I'm not at all used to JS, and am simply fumbling around here.

Any pointers on how to solve this little chestnut would be most appreciated.

My main requirement is to simply ensure that the JS file is called externally.

dave conz · 01-02-2005, 02:24 PM

It looks like it should work. What exactly is the problem, e.g. does the script load and cause an error, or does the script not load at all?

dejaone · 01-02-2005, 02:31 PM

code looks ok. make sure SRC="/js/html.js" point to your javascript source code. for debug purpose, you can include your javascript into the html doc, instead of a source file.

I, Brian · 01-02-2005, 04:51 PM

Does it make a difference if I put the code between the body tags at all?? I'm simply getting no effect - the HTML is simply not appearing and there is no error message at all.

**LazyJim** · 01-02-2005, 08:01 PM

Quote:

SRC="/js/html.js"

the first slash here means start form the root folder (of your space), did u mean to do that or is js a subfolder of the page?

**LazyJim** · 01-02-2005, 08:05 PM

procedure for finding source of error, try html in the page (no JS) as suggested above, (if u can), assuming this works...
next try JS to insert a simple text like 'hello world' to check if you can do that, so the HTML u wanted to insert would be the problem.
if not try JS alert('ALERT!'); to see if the js is being run.

in the <body> yes! if you want to document.write() something in you page it wiouldn't be seen if outside of the body tag.

imaginemn · 01-02-2005, 11:44 PM

In the HTML file you want to use the code type the following (make sure you save the JS file in your JS folder):

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.4" SRC="/js/html.js" TYPE='text/javascript'></SCRIPT>

In the html.js file use ONLY (DO NOT use the SCRIPT tags in the JS file):

document.write('HTMLcode');

The other way to do it is to just add the javascript into your html file directly.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.4" TYPE='text/javascript'>
document.write('HTMLcode');
</SCRIPT>

TIP: I would remove the 1.4 unless you are using ONLY 1.4 JavaScript code. Because older browsers will not work if they don't support JavaScript 1.4.

imaginemn

I, Brian · 01-03-2005, 04:06 AM

Thanks for the help, all - just adding text within the document.write commas works fine - which suggests it to be an issue with the HTML code itself. It simply does not want to call up a table with cells via the Javascript. Are there special rules for handling this??

imaginemn · 01-03-2005, 07:25 AM

Double check all your characters.

document.write('<table><TR><TD>How's my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>');

This will fail because of the extra ' character under "How's". If you need special characters (which is usually the problem) use a leading slash.

document.write('<table><TR><TD>How\'s my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>');

or

document.write('<table><TR width=\"600\"><TD>How\'s my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>');

You might want to post the code that is not working to see if there is something we can see to help you better.

imaginemn

**LazyJim** · 01-04-2005, 07:55 AM

yup that means probably an escape problem.

DragonEye · 01-04-2005, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by imaginemn

Double check all your characters.

document.write('<table><TR><TD>How's my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>');

This will fail because of the extra ' character under "How's". If you need special characters (which is usually the problem) use a leading slash.

document.write('<table><TR><TD>How\'s my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>');

or

document.write('<table><TR width=\"600\"><TD>How\'s my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>');

You might want to post the code that is not working to see if there is something we can see to help you better.

imaginemn

You forget document.write("<TABLE><TR WIDTH=600><TD>How's my work?</TD></TR></TABLE>");

I, Brian · 01-05-2005, 01:28 AM

The HTML code I'm trying to Javascript is the DMOZ copyright code:

Code:

<TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#666699" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0"><TR><TD>
<TABLE WIDTH=100% CELLPADDING=2 CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0><TR ALIGN=center>
<TD><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.</FONT></TD>
</TR><TR BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD" ALIGN=center>
<TD>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/add.cgi?where=$path">Submit a Site</A> - <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/about.html"><B>Open Directory Project</B></A> - <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/apply.cgi?where=$path">Become an Editor</A> &nbsp;</TD>
</TR></TABLE>
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm building a site that calls on DMOZ data, but I figure that Google and friends may use the DMOZ footprint as a way to devalue pages using DMOZ data - something I am keen to avoid. Using external Javascript is one way that may circumvent that issue - for the time being at least.

However, even with forward slashes, I simply cannot get the DMOZ code to work in a Javascript code.

Is there something radical I'm overlooking, or am I just being sloppy?

DragonEye · 01-05-2005, 02:26 AM

I don't understand why it doesn't work, but I tried it myself and with me it doesn't work either

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
document.write("<TABLE BORDER=\"0\" BGCOLOR=\"#666699\" CELLPADDING=\"3\" CELLSPACING=\"0\"><TR><TD><TABLE WIDTH=100% CELLPADDING=2 CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0><TR ALIGN=center><TD><FONT COLOR=\"#FFFFFF\">Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.</FONT></TD></TR><TR BGCOLOR=\"#DDDDDD\" ALIGN=center><TD><A HREF=\"http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/add.cgi?where=$path\">Submit a Site</A> - <A HREF=\"http://dmoz.org/about.html\"><B>Open Directory Project</B></A> - <A HREF=\"http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/apply.cgi?where=$path\">Become an Editor</A> &nbsp;</TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TABLE></SCRIPT></body></html>");
</SCRIPT>
</BODY>
</HTML>

this just prints "); onto the page without any error warning

DragonEye

imaginemn · 01-05-2005, 07:55 AM

JavaScript does some funny things sometimes.

Try:

Code:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
document.write('<TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#666699" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0"><TR><TD>');
document.write('<TABLE WIDTH=100% CELLPADDING=2 CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0><TR ALIGN=center>');
document.write('<TD><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.</FONT></TD>');
document.write('</TR><TR BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD" ALIGN=center>');
document.write('<TD>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/add.cgi?where=$path">Submit a Site</A> - <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/about.html"><B>Open Directory Project</B></A> - <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/apply.cgi?where=$path">Become an Editor</A> &nbsp;</TD>');
document.write('</TR></TABLE>');
document.write('</TD></TR></TABLE>');
</SCRIPT>

OR

Code:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
document.write('<TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#666699" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0"><TR><TD><TABLE WIDTH=100% CELLPADDING=2 CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0><TR ALIGN=center><TD><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.</FONT></TD></TR><TR BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD" ALIGN=center><TD>&nbsp; <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/add.cgi?where=$path">Submit a Site</A> - <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/about.html"><B>Open Directory Project</B></A> - <A HREF="http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/apply.cgi?where=$path">Become an Editor</A> &nbsp;</TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TABLE>');
</script>

imaginemn

dave conz · 01-05-2005, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DragonEye

this just prints "); onto the page without any error warning

The code you posted has a rogue </script> tag which causes the script to abort prematurely. It also has questionable </body></html> tags.

I, Brian · 01-06-2005, 04:56 AM

Superb work again, imaginenm.

FGTH · 01-07-2005, 11:27 AM

I experimented and found that javascript works when I escape all reserved characters found in CGI/Perl.