For the past few weeks I have been introducing the basics for writing
your own JavaScript programs. JavaScript is the perfect general purpose tool
for adding special effects, animation and management operations to your web
site. A perfect example is a Pop-Up Window..
I'm inclined to say "...for those of you that are not familiar with
Pop-Up windows..." and then explain what they are. If you don't
already know what a Pop-Up window is, then this newsletter is
probably your first experience with the Internet. Pop-Up
Windows are everywhere and are more often than not, a major
announce akin to Spam. There are however, many legitimate
uses for Pop-Up windows. For instance, when you wish to
display additional or ancillary information to the current topic.
I have posted an example at is46fig1.htm . When you click on
"Show me the Script", a window will popup with the JavaScript
code that is used to create the Pop-Up window. The script itself
is pretty simple:
In the above example, the window.open call contains 3 sets of
parameters.
page is the URL of the page to be opened. If it is left blank,
an empty page will be opened.
title is a title to be given to the window. It can be used to
reference the new window from the current window.
The third parameter is a list of options. Most of them will default
to "disabled" if not included in the list. To enable them simply
include them in the list or assign them a value of 1. A value of 0
will disable them. Some options require a value.
left Specifies the left location of the window in pixels .
top Specifies the top location of the window in pixels.
width Sets the width in pixels.
height Sets the height of the window in pixels.
innerHeight Sets the inner height of the window in pixels.
innerWidth Sets the inner width of the window in pixels.
outerHeight Sets the outer height in pixels.
outerWidth Sets the outer width in pixels.
resizable Will create a resizable window.
alwaysLowered The window will float below other windows.
alwaysRaised The window will float above other windows.
z-lock Prevents the window from being hidden.
dependent Will close the window when the parent closes.
directories Will display the standard directory buttons.
hotkeys Will disable or enable the use of hot keys.
location Sets the Location entry field.
menubar Will enable the menu bar
scrollbars Will enable scrollbars
titlebar Will enable the Title bar.
toolbar Will enable the toolbar.
status Will enable the status bar.
When the window.open function executes successfully, it will
return the link to the window so that it can be accessed from the
parent window. If for example, you open a popup window
without a URL, you can write to it directly.
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function empty_window () {
popup = window.open ("", "title", "width=200,height=150");
popup.document.write("What can I say?");
popup.document.close();
}
</script>
Functions can simply be linked to using the anchor tag. To link
to the function in is68fig1, you would use the anchor:
<a href="javascript:pop_window('page.htm')">Open a Popup
Window
or
<a href="javascript:pop_window('')">Open a Popup
Window</a>
In the First example, the function is named "pop_window" and
the html file is named ('page.htm'). Since there is no page
specified in the second link, a blank page will be opened.
For IMS users, you can add these Scripts to an HTML text
Object and then link to them by assigning the link to any Object
in the Object Editor. The link would look like:
"javascript:pop_window('page.htm')" (without the quotes) Where
page is the HTML file you wish to open.
Next week I shall continue my series on coding JavaScript
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