Boris,

<< I've seen hints of WebDOM here and there, and it seems to basically expose what we can normally access in JavaScript. >>

Yes, it's basically everything that you need in terms of accessing the built-in functionality in the browser DOM, but with the added bonus of helper code that makes it easier to deal with some of the more common aspects of DOM element handling.  If it's not in the WebDOM unit, then it's probably not standard across all browsers yet.

<< EWB is just so radically different to me, so I'm really quite lost.  And then there's always the best practice way to do something in any programming environment vs hacks and throwbacks to the older familiar ways (like coding in assembler instead of using a Win32 library call). >>

The benefit of using the WebDOM unit compared to straight JS comes down to the type-checking.  In the EWB version of the code that I included, if you accessed the "reld" property instead of the "rel" property, the EWB compiler would tell you so, whereas the JS version would *do absolutely nothing* that you could tell was a failure or an error.  Your font linking code *simply would not work*.  Under the hood, the native JS would add a new expando property to the element called "reld", with the string value of "stylesheet", which is not quite what you had in mind.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Uli,

<< That's certainly true, but for the "average" user like me most things are not obvious unless there are sample projects or technical articles about that. And even then I can copy your code e.g. and use it, but I don't understand it. >>

Understood, which is why I'm bringing it up as an alternative in this case. I'll try to do so as much as possible, since it really does make your code more reliable to use the external interfaces instead of straight JS code (see my other post).

If you want to see how the WebDOM unit is used with respect to element management, the best unit to study is the WebUI unit.  In particular, everywhere the DOMElement identifier is used.  The key, though, is don't get hung up on what the WebUI unit *itself* is doing, because that's a lot more complicated.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

> The benefit of using the WebDOM unit compared to straight JS comes down to the type-checking...

Very good point!

Uli