Affecting gadget state on a web page

[Yesideez]

Just a little puzzled on this one.

 

Say I've got a page and the only thing on it is a load of gadgets. A couple checkboxes and a string gadget. I've not defined a form or a table yet when one of the checkboxes is ticked the string gadget is enabled. When it's unticked the string gadget is disabled. This I can imagine would be pretty simply.

 

Now let's place the gadgets inside a form - do I have to give it a name to be able to access the gadgets within Javascript?

 

Also, if I use a table do I have to give that a name to access it as above?

 

eg. document.myform.mytable.mystringgadget

 

Or can I still access the string gadget like this:

 

document.mystringgadget

 

I know and understand about nested objects (ie. a table inside a form may need to be accessed form first) but I can't get my head around when I have to name elements and include them in a document statement and when I don't.

[phpQuestioner]

you can get around the form by doing it like this:

 

document.getElementById('myGadgetsIDHere').dosomethinghere = whatever;

 

give you gadget an id - example above would be "myGadgetsIDHere"; of course you would change that, obviously, to whatever you want the id to be.

[Yesideez]

Thanks for that.

 

Unfortunately because JavaScript doesn't produce any error messages or even any codes its really difficult to debug.

 

Is there an add-on for Forefox or some other third party piece of software to help writing JavaScript?

 

I bought a small JavaScript pocket reference book but its been as useful as a chocolate teapot!

[phpQuestioner]

FireBug will help you find errors in your scripts.

 

It's an add on from FireFox; it can be found here:

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

[Yesideez]

Wow I'm impressed with Firebug!

 

Thanks for that, never realised something like that was available - definitely added to my faves