October 26, 2000 - Checking if Active Along the Timeline

October 26, 2000
Checking if Active Along the Timeline

Tips: October 2000

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

The HTML+TIME capability in IE 5.5 and up is based on the timeline principle. Some applications require that you know whether an element is currently active on the timeline. You do it by using the currTimeState object, which is a property of any container that participates in the HTML+TIME behavior. One of currTimeState's many properties and methods is the isActive property. The isActive property reports whether an element is active (returns a true value) or not (returns a false value). The following example (based on a Microsoft script) demonstrates the usage of isActive. When you click the button, we print whether the element parallel is active. Since this HTML+TIME example runs forever, the answer will always be true. Here is the function that prints whether the element is active:

function printActive() {
  alert(parallel.currTimeState.isActive);
}

And here is the Demo:

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Here is the HTML code:

<INPUT TYPE="button" value="Show Active Duration" onclick="printActive()">
<t:PAR CLASS="time" ID="parallel" REPEATCOUNT="indefinite">
    <H1 ID="hdg1" CLASS="time" STYLE="color:red;" 
	TIMEACTION="style" BEGIN="0" DUR="3">Heading 1</H1>
    <H2 ID="hdg2" CLASS="time" STYLE="color:red;" 
	TIMEACTION="style" BEGIN="0" DUR="3">Heading 2</H2>
    <H3 ID="hdg3" CLASS="time" STYLE="color:blue;" 
	TIMEACTION="style" BEGIN="3" DUR="3">Heading 3</H3>
    <H4 ID="hdg4" CLASS="time" STYLE="color:blue;" 
	TIMEACTION="style" BEGIN="3" DUR="3">Heading 4</H4>
    <H5 ID="hdg5" CLASS="time" STYLE="color:green;" 
	TIMEACTION="style" BEGIN="6" DUR="3">Heading 5</H5>
    <H6 ID="hdg6" CLASS="time" STYLE="color:green;" 
	TIMEACTION="style" BEGIN="6" DUR="3">Heading 6</H6>
</t:PAR>

Learn more about HTML+TIME in Column 67, Introduction to HTML+TIME.