dojo/_base/window

Deprecated.

Reasons for deprecation

dojo/_base/window was originally written to serve two main purposes:

  • Provide methods/variables to access the current document and the <body> element of the current document.
  • Provide functions to switch the “current document”, i.e. the document accessed by the methods/variables mentioned above, and indirectly by DOM methods where the document isn’t implied by the arguments, for example dojo.byId("xyz").

In modern code, you can usually forgo use of this module, and instead just:

  • Use the window, document, and document.body global variables, or equivalent variables for the frame that you want to operate on.
  • If you need to operate on a different frame/document, all of the modern dojo DOM related methods either take a document parameter or a DOMNode parameter (which implies a document). For example:
require(["dojo/dom", "dojo/dom-geometry"], function(dom, domGeom){
    var node = dom.byId("address", myDocument);
    domGeom.setMarginBox(node, ...);
});

Here’s the original documentation for the dojo/_base/window methods, preserved for posterity:

Accessing the Current Document

body()

This is a shorthand method for accessing the <body> element within the document. Not only is it shorter, it returns the current body of the current context. It also allows Dojo to use the call in non-browser environments by overloading the function to return an appropriate element.

The most important item to remember is body() is a function, and needs to be executed to get the value:

require(["dojo/_base/window"], function(win){
  console.log( win.body() );
});

This is shorter and safer to write than:

var b = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0];
console.log(b);

Using the <body> element is an exercise left to the developer. There are several utility functions in Dojo to do common tasks on DOMNodes, and <body> is just another DOMNode:

require(["dojo/_base/window", "dojo/dom-style", "dojo/dom-construct"], function(win, style, ctr){
    // set the background color:
    style.set(win.body(), "backgroundColor", "green");
    // place a node with id="foo" as the last-child of body:
    ctr.place("foo", win.body());
    // place id="foo" as a first-child of body:
    ctr.place("foo", win.body(), "first");
});

doc

Alias for the current document. This is normally the value of window[“document”];

The purpose of this attribute is twofold. First, it provides a shorter reference to get the current document. Second, all references that make use of it can have their document scope altered temporarily by changes to the doc variable. In other words, doc is altered by withDoc() and setContext().

Use this variable in place of window.document.

require(["dojo/_base/window"], function(win){
   var currentBody = win.body();
   var newText = win.doc.createTextNode("Some text");
   currentBody.appendChild(newText);
});

Changing the Current Document

setContext()

setContext() allows many of Dojo’s core functions to easily switch context (e.g. from the current window to an iframe) with a single function call:

require(["dojo/_base/window"], function(win){
  win.setContext(window, window.document);
  // or
  win.setContext(myIframe.contentWindow, myIframe.contentWindow.document);
  ...
});

However, most code will want to use withDoc() or withGlobal() rather than calling setContext() directly.

setContext() works by modifying the values of doc, body(), and dojo/_base/kernel::global

Example

Here is a simple example that counts the links in the current page as well as the links in an embedded iframe, via setContext().

require(["dojo/dom", "dojo/query", "dojo/_base/window"], function(dom, query, win){
  var countLinks = function(){
    var these = dom.byId('these_links');
    var those = dom.byId('those_links');
    var iframe = dom.byId('iframe').contentWindow;

    // Count the number of links in *this* page
    these.value = query('a').length;

    // Change context from current window to iframe
    win.setContext(iframe.window, iframe.window.document);

    // Count the number of links in the *iframe*
    those.value = query('a').length;
  };
});

withDoc()

Use this function to replace doc for the duration of a specific function call. Only during that specific function execution is doc assigned the document you specify, and then it’s restored to it’s previous value.

The example below demonstrates how to use it against an iframe document to query into the iframe and make updates:

require(["dojo/_base/array", "dojo/dom", "dojo/_base/window", "dojo/query", "dojo/dom-style"],
function(array, dom, win, query, style){
    changeStyles = function(){
        // Apply styles to the document contained by the iframe
        var frameDoc = dom.byId("simpleFrame").contentWindow.document;
        win.withDoc(frameDoc, function(){
            var tds= query("td");
            array.forEach(tds, function(cell){
                style.set(cell, "color", "red");
            });
        });
    };
});
<button id="changeStyles" onclick="changeStyles();">Change Text Color in iFrame</button>
<br><br>
<iframe id="simpleFrame" name="simpleFrame" src="{{dataUrl}}dojox/data/tests/stores/books.html" style="width: 500px; height: 500px;">
</iframe>

withGlobal()

This function provides a quick way to alter both dojo/_base/kernel::global (the global scope) and the dojo/_base/window::doc (the current document) for the duration of a callback execution. You pass in a global scope (window object) and if it contains a “document” property, it is used in place of the default dojo/_base/window::doc.

Example usage:

require(["dojo/dom", "dojo/_base/window"], function(dom, win){
  var ifr = dom.byId("someIframe");
  var newGlobal = ifr.contentWindow; // get the global scope object from the frame

  // Call a callback with different 'global' values and context.
  win.withGlobal(newGlobal,  function(){
    console.log("The current win.global is: ", win.global);
    console.log("The current win.doc is: ", win.doc);
    console.log("The current scope is: ", this);
  }, this);
});
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