clientHeight/clientWidth returning "Object Required" error

HaLo2FrEeEk · December 18, 2008

I'm pulling my hair out over this. All I want to do is add snow to my website's homepage to complete the christmas theme, and I can't even do that.

From what I have read, clientHeight requires the strict doctype, which I can't use (I have to use transitional). Is there an alternative to using clientHeight/Width that will work cross-browser and will not return an error everytime I load the page. I'm sick of seeing that thing down there. Here is the fulls cript I'm using:

  var no = 25; // snow number

  var dx, xp, yp;    // coordinate and position variables
  var am, stx, sty;  // amplitude and step variables
  var i;

  var doc_width = document.body.clientWidth;
  var doc_height = document.body.clientHeight;

  dx = new Array();
  xp = new Array();
  yp = new Array();
  am = new Array();
  stx = new Array();
  sty = new Array();

  var snow = new Array(2);
    snow[0]="http://infectionist.com/pages/seasonal_templates/christmas/images/snow.gif";
    snow[1]="http://infectionist.com/pages/seasonal_templates/christmas/images/snow2.gif";

  var flake = snow[Math.floor(Math.random()*2)];

  for (i = 0; i < no; ++ i) {
    dx[i] = 0;                        // set coordinate variables
    xp[i] = Math.random()*(doc_width-50);  // set position variables
    yp[i] = Math.random()*doc_height;
    am[i] = Math.random()*20;         // set amplitude variables
    stx[i] = 0.02 + Math.random()/10; // set step variables
    sty[i] = 0.7 + Math.random();     // set step variables
    if (i == 0) {
      document.write("<div id=\"dot"+ i +"\" style=\"POSITION: absolute; Z-INDEX: "+ i +"; VISIBILITY: visible; TOP: 15px; LEFT: 15px;\"><img src=\""+flake+"\" border=\"0\"></div>");
    } else {
      document.write("<div id=\"dot"+ i +"\" style=\"POSITION: absolute; Z-INDEX: "+ i +"; VISIBILITY: visible; TOP: 15px; LEFT: 15px;\"><img src=\""+flake+"\" border=\"0\"></div>");
    }
  }

  function snow() {
    for (i = 0; i < no; ++ i) {  // iterate for every dot
      yp[i] += sty[i];
      if (yp[i] > doc_height-50) {
        xp[i] = Math.random()*(doc_width-am[i]-30);
        yp[i] = 0;
        stx[i] = 0.02 + Math.random()/10;
        sty[i] = 0.7 + Math.random();
        doc_width = document.body.clientWidth;
        doc_height = document.body.clientHeight;
      }
      dx[i] += stx[i];
      document.getElementById("dot"+i).style.top = yp[i];
      document.getElementById("dot"+i).style.left = xp[i] + am[i]*Math.sin(dx[i]);
    }
    setTimeout("snow()", 10);
  }

  snow();

The error I get refers to line 8, character 3. Here is that line with a padding of 5 lines:

var dx, xp, yp;    // coordinate and position variables
  var am, stx, sty;  // amplitude and step variables
  var i;

  var doc_width = document.body.clientWidth;
  var doc_height = document.body.clientHeight;

  dx = new Array();
  xp = new Array();
  yp = new Array();
  am = new Array();

Like I said, I'm going crazy here. I can't stand it when something works for one person and not for me. I got this off a website where it's running at and it works perfectly there, looks great. I followed a link and saw it on Dynamicdrive.com, too, and it works like a charm there, so it's just me.

Can someone please, PLEASE help me solve this issue! I would be very thankful, and I really want to have it snowing on my site to complete the holiday theme.

Psycho · December 18, 2008

Your problem is not that those parameters require a transitional doctype. They work just fine with a transistional doctype. This simple test works just fine in IE & FF:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<script>

function snow()
{
    alert(document.body.clientWidth);
    alert(document.body.clientHeight);
    return;
}

window.onload = snow;

</script>

</head>
<body>
Test
</body>
</html>

There must be something else wrong, but I'm unable to detemine from what you have provided so far.

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clientHeight/clientWidth returning "Object Required" error

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