DOCJSLIB Version 4.0: Further Streamlining of the HTML Scroller - www.docjavascript.com | 2

We have made every effort to remove any browser dependency from the scroller script. These browsers differ, for example, in their support of the onload event for DHTML elements. Internet Explorer does not support it, while Netscape Navigator does. The onElementLoad() function expects three parameters: the element id, the action required, and the parameters needed for this action:

function onElementLoad(element, doThat, theseParameters) {
  if (NS4) eval(element).onLoad = eval(doThat)
  else eval(doThat + theseParameters);
}

As you can see, in Netscape Navigator we translate the function call to an onLoad event handler initialization. In Internet Explorer, we just call the action without any event handling stuff. Here is how the calls to this function look like:

onElementLoad(secondPage, "launchScroller", "()");
onElementLoad(firstPage, "makeSecondPage", "()");

Using such functions helps streamlining the main script, as all browser dependencies are handled in these functions instead of the main script. Another potential streamlining is the conversion of Netscape Navigator's DHTML model to the in-line <ILAYER> tag, which is very similar to the Internet Explorer's <IFRAME> tag. We opted not to do it, as the <ILAYER> tag is notoriously buggy.