DOM-2 and the W3C

The W3C (as mentioned in Chapter 1) has released specifications for how browsers should handle the Document Object Model (also known as the DOM). The DOM Level 2 specification, which became an official recommendation in November 2000, goes into more depth as to how browsers should be able to refer to and manage the content on their pages. You can find out more details about the specification at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/.

Although this specification has been around for years, there are still plenty of browsers in use that have incomplete or partial DOM-2 support. Before using any of these scripts, make sure that your intended audience is able to run them, or that you offer another way for older browsers to achieve the same results. Thankfully, the majority of surfers today use Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox, or Safari, which should all work just fine with these scripts.