Unobtrusive Javacript (and the DOM)

Ah, Javascript. The wonderful scripting language that creates lots of cool stuff on your web page. But how do you make it Accessible?

Download Web Axe Episode 11

Links:

• W3C Checkpoint 6.3
• Directly Accessible Scripts (W3C)
• DOM Overview (W3C)
• WaSP Javascript Manefesto
• Creating Accessible JavaScript
• (WebAim)

This is an example of a javascript “listener” which opens a link in a new window (using a function) if the rel in the a tag is “external”.

window.onload=function(){
setOnClick();
}

function setOnClick() {
if(!document.getElementsByTagName) {
return;
}
var anchors = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for (var i=anchors.length; i !=0; i--) {
var a=anchors[i-1];
if (a.rel.indexOf("external") != -1) {
a.onclick = function(){newWin(this.href,'popup1',700,400);
return false;}
}
}