The a object reflects the a element, regardless of whether the element is set up to be an anchor, link, or both. Early versions of Navigator and Internet Explorer treat this object only as a member of the links[] and/or anchors[] arrays of a document. Starting with IE 4 and Netscape 6, you can access the object through supported element object reference syntax (e.g., the document.all[] collection for IE or document.getElementById() for IE 5 and later and Netscape 6).

This is single character key that either gives focus to an element (in some browsers) or activates a form control or link action. The browser and operating system determine if the user must press a modifier key (e.g., Ctrl, Alt, or Command) with the access key to activate the link. In Windows versions of IE 5 and later and Netscape 6, the Alt key is required and the key is not case-sensitive. For Macintosh versions of IE 5 and later and Netscape 6, the Ctrl modifier key is required to effect the action.

Removes focus from the current object, at which time the object's onblur event fires. Note that the range of elements capable of focus and blur (both the event and method) is limited in all browsers except for more recent versions of IE (see the shared tabindex attribute in Chapter 8). Most reliably for backward compatibility, apply the blur( ) method to blatantly focusable elements, such as text input and textarea elements. Assigning the attribute onfocus="this.blur( );" to a text input element, for instance, is a crude but effective backward-compatible way to largely disable a field for browsers that do not provide genuine element disabling.

Character encoding of the document's content.

Defines the outline of an area to be associated with a particular link or scripted action. This property is a member of the a object, but really belongs to the area object, which inherits the properties of the a object. Coordinate values are entered as a comma-delimited list. If hotspots of two areas should overlap, the area that is defined earlier in the code takes precedence.

Used with IE data binding to associate a remote data source column value in lieu of an href attribute for a link. The datasrc attribute must also be set for the element. Setting both the dataFld and dataSrc properties to empty strings breaks the binding between element and data source. Works only with text file data sources in IE 5/Mac.

Used with IE data binding, this property advises the browser whether the source material arriving from the data source is to be treated as plain text or as tagged HTML.

Used with IE data binding to specify the ID of the page's object element that loads the data source object for remote data access. Content from the data source to be inserted into the a element text is specified via the datafld property. Setting both the dataFld and dataSrc properties to empty strings breaks the binding between element and data source. Works only with text file data sources in IE 5/Mac.

Gives focus from the current object, at which time the object's onfocus event fires. Note that the range of elements capable of focus and blur (both the event and method) is limited in all browsers except for more recent versions of IE (see the shared tabindex attribute in Chapter 8). Most reliably for backward compatibility, apply the focus( ) method to blatantly focusable elements, such as text input and textarea elements.

Provides that portion of the href attribute's URL following the # symbol, referring to an anchor location in a document. Do not include the # symbol when setting the property.

This is the combination of the hostname and port (if any) of the server of the destination document for the link. If the port is explicitly part of the URL, the hostname and port are separated by a colon, just as they are in the URL. If the port number is not specified in an HTTP URL for IE, it automatically returns the default, port 80.

This is the hostname of the server (i.e., a "two-dot" address consisting of server name and domain) of the destination document for the link. The hostname property does not include the port number.

Provides the URL specified by the element's href attribute.

Provides the language code of the content at the destination of a link. Requires that the href attribute or property also be set.

Provides an advisory attribute about the functionality of the destination of a link. A browser could use this information to display special colors or images for the element content based on what the destination does for the user, but Internet Explorer does not appear to do anything with this information.

Returns a plain-language version of the MIME type of the destination document at the other end of the link specified by the href attribute. You could use this information to set the cursor type during a mouse rollover. Don't confuse this property with the navigator.mimeTypes[] array and individual mimeType objects that Netscape Navigator refers to. This is not available in IE 4/Macintosh.

This is the identifier associated with an element that turns it into an anchor. You can also use the name as part of the object reference.

Returns just the filename, rather than the full URL, of the href attribute set for the element. Not available in IE 4/Macintosh.

Provides the pathname component of the URL assigned to the element's href attribute. This consists of all URL information following the last character of the domain name, including the initial forward slash symbol.

Provides the port component of the URL assigned to the element's href attribute. This consists of all URL information following the colon after the last character of the domain name. The colon is not part of the port property value.

Indicates the protocol component of the URL assigned to the element's href attribute. This consists of all URL information up to and including the first colon of a URL. Typical values are: "http:", "file:", "ftp:", and "mailto:".

Provides a verbose description of the protocol implied by the URL of the href attribute or href property. Not supported in IE 4/Macintosh, and appears to be deprecated .

Used with IE data binding, returns an integer representing the record within the data set that generated the element (i.e., an element whose content is filled via data binding). Values of this property can be used to extract a specific record from an Active Data Objects (ADO) record set (see recordset property). Although this property is defined for all IE element objects, the other properties related to data binding belong to a subset of elements.

Defines the relationship between the current element and the destination of the link. Also known as a forward link, not to be confused in any way with the destination document whose address is defined by the href attribute. Mainstream browsers do not take advantage of this attribute for the a element, but you can treat the attribute as a kind of parameter to be checked and/or modified under script control. See the discussion of the a element's rel attribute in Chapter 8 for a glimpse of how this property may be used in the future.

Defines the relationship between the current element and the destination of the link. Also known as a reverse link. This property is not exploited yet in mainstream browsers, but you can treat the attribute as a kind of parameter to be checked and/or modified under script control. See the discussion of the a element's rev attribute in Chapter 8 for a glimpse of how this property may be used in the future.

Provides the URL-encoded portion of a URL assigned to the href attribute that begins with the ? symbol. A document that is served up as the result of the search also may have the search portion available as part of the window.location property. You can modify this property with a script. Doing so sends the URL and search criteria to the server. You must know the format of data (usually name/value pairs) expected by the server to perform this properly.

Indicates the shape of a server-side image map area, with coordinates that are specified with the COORDS attribute. Intended for use by the area object, which inherits the properties of the a object.

This is a number that indicates the sequence of this element within the tabbing order of all focusable elements in the document. Tabbing order follows a strict set of rules. Elements that have values other than zero assigned to their tabIndex properties are first in line when a user starts tabbing in a page. Focus starts with the element with the lowest tabIndex value and proceeds in order to the highest value, regardless of physical location on the page or in the document. If two elements have the same tabIndex values, the element that comes earlier in the document receives focus first. Next come all elements that either don't support the tabIndex property or have the value set to zero. These elements receive focus in the order in which they appear in the document.

Provides the name of the window or frame that is to receive content as the result of navigating to a link. Such names are assigned to frames by the frame element's name attribute; for subwindows, the name is assigned via the second parameter of the window.open( ) method. If you need the services of a target attribute to open a linked page in a blank browser window and you also need the HTML to validate under strict HTML or XHTML DTDs (see Chapter 1), you can omit the target attribute in the code, but you must assign a value to the a element's target property by script after the page loads.

Returns the text between the a element's start and end tags. This property pre-dates the W3C DOM and should be used only if needed for Navigator 4.

This is the MIME type of the destination document at the other end of the link specified by the href attribute. A browser might use this information to assist in preparing support for a resource requiring a multimedia player or plugin.

Indicates a Uniform Resource Name (URN) version of the destination document specified in the href attribute. This attribute is intended to offer support in the future for the URN format of URI, an evolving recommendation under discussion at the IETF (see RFC 2141). Although supported in IE, this attribute does not take the place of the href attribute.