document.write with onClick

[The]

I want a script where when you click different links, it changes certain text. I'm doing it like this:

<a href=&quot;blah.html&quot; onClick=&quot;document.write('Blah');&quot;>Blah</a>

My only problem is, instead of writing &quot;blah&quot; on the existing page, it goes to a blank page with &quot;blah&quot; written on it. How can I fix this? Is there something better than document.write that I could use? Thanks.

 

[jpbrassard]

By referencing a page in the href attribute of the A element - in this case &quot;blah.html&quot; - you're telling your browser to go to &quot;blah.html&quot;, and with the onClick you're telling it to write &quot;Blah&quot; when it gets there. What you want to do is change text on the existing page without reloading it - for that, you'll probably want to ignore document.write altogether, and use the innerText or innerHTML methods in a JavaScript function. It depends on where on the page you're writing the values depicted in the links. Something like this:

<SCRIPT language=&quot;JavaScript&quot;>
function WriteText(target,newText){
var oTarget = document.getElementById(target) //the object that will be holding your text
var oldText = oTarget.innerText;
var retVal;

if (newText != '') {
oldText = oldText + ' ' + newText;
oTarget.innerText = oldText;
retVal = 0
} else {
retVal = 1
}
}
</SCRIPT>

Then, in your link code, change it to look like:

<a href=&quot;javascript:WriteText('targetArea','Blah')&quot; onMouseOver=&quot;window.status='';return true&quot; onMouseOut=&quot;window.status='';return true&quot; onClick=&quot;window.status='';return true&quot;>Blah</a>

Providing the &quot;window.status='';return true&quot; in the onMouseOver, onMouseOut and onClick events of the A element hides the JavaScript function call from the browser's status bar.

HTH,
jp