Seeking to establish an industry standard for Web site scripting,
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published the Document
Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML specification as a W3C
Recommendation. This is in effect endorsement as a W3C
standard.
The specification provides for a language-neutral interface to
allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the
content, structure, and style of HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents,
according to W3C.
The specification is intended as a standard API for manipulating
HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents and data through a programming
language such as Java or ECMAscript, W3C said.
Version 2.0 will support for XHTML documents, in which DOM now can
be used to manipulate both XML-based XHTML or HTML. Also key to
Version 2.0 is support for frames, in which content of a page is
divided into several parts and objects.
Use of DOM Level 2.0 "means you don't have to write multiple
scripts to manipulate an HTML document", said WC3 spokesperson
Janet Daly.
"There's one uniform application programming interface," she
said.
Support for DOM is needed in browsers, but much of the support
needed for DOM Level 2.0 already exists.
An analyst, however, said while the specification could yield
better Web browsers, support still is needed.
"DOM Level 2 is the latest rev of this model," said Ronald
Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink.
"While this is important for the developer crowd, the user
population as a whole won't really have much interaction with the
DOM. It really is up to Web browser vendors like Microsoft,
Mozilla, Opera, and the like to add this functionality to their
products. So, we will need to wait until this makes its way into
products before we can see any benefit," he said.
DOM will allow the user to produce better Web browsers that can do
more interactive features without having to download lots of
plug-ins or use proprietary browser technology for certain aspects
of dynamic HTML, Schmetzer added.
However, he noted that the specification is not
downward-compatible, which means developers using DOM Level 2 will
not be building products compatible with current DOM browser
technology and this could be a problem.