Methods

When you need to DO something, like open a window, write text to the screen, get the sin of a number, isolate the 1st letter in a word, assign today's date to a variable, send the user back to the previous page, or display an alert box you are using a method.

When you change the details about something which already exists, you are changing its properties.

For example:

document.bgcolor="red"

is a property because I'm changing the existing details about the document. alert("Hello There") is a method because it creates something new, an alert box.

Here are a few types of commands that methods are useful for.

• Date Methods - set variables to the clock time in a variety of ways.
• Window Methods - used to open and close new windows
• Document Methods - Generate new documents on the fly.
• Form Methods - select form items, send the cursor to text boxes and submit forms.
• History Methods - Press the reader's 'Back' button and other tricks.
• Text Methods - Define the look of your text variables before your display them.
• Math Methods - sin, cos, round, random, absolute value, etc.
• MessageBox Methods - Alert, Prompt, and Confirm are all methods.