How to Get the HTML for a Dom Element in JavaScript

How to get the HTML for a DOM element in javascript

Expanding on jldupont's answer, you could create a wrapping element on the fly:

var target = document.getElementById('myElement');
var wrap = document.createElement('div');
wrap.appendChild(target.cloneNode(true));
alert(wrap.innerHTML);

I am cloning the element to avoid having to remove and reinsert the element in the actual document. This might be expensive if the element you wish to print has a very large tree below it, though.

Creating a new DOM element from an HTML string using built-in DOM methods or Prototype

Note: most current browsers support HTML <template> elements, which provide a more reliable way of turning creating elements from strings. See Mark Amery's answer below for details.

For older browsers, and node/jsdom: (which doesn't yet support <template> elements at the time of writing), use the following method. It's the same thing the libraries use to do to get DOM elements from an HTML string (with some extra work for IE to work around bugs with its implementation of innerHTML):

function createElementFromHTML(htmlString) {
  var div = document.createElement('div');
  div.innerHTML = htmlString.trim();

  // Change this to div.childNodes to support multiple top-level nodes.
  return div.firstChild;
}

Note that unlike HTML templates this won't work for some elements that cannot legally be children of a <div>, such as <td>s.

If you're already using a library, I would recommend you stick to the library-approved method of creating elements from HTML strings:

Prototype has this feature built-into its update() method.
jQuery has it implemented in its jQuery(html) and jQuery.parseHTML methods.

How to get the html tag HTML with JavaScript / jQuery?

The simplest way to get the html element natively is:

document.documentElement

Here's the reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document.documentElement.

UPDATE: To then grab the html element as a string you would do:

document.documentElement.outerHTML

Converting HTML string into DOM elements?

You can use a DOMParser, like so:

var xmlString = "<div id='foo'><a href='#'>Link</a><span></span></div>";var doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(xmlString, "text/xml");console.log(doc.firstChild.innerHTML); // => <a href="#">Link...console.log(doc.firstChild.firstChild.innerHTML); // => Link

How to access html DOM element through electron js

To get the innerText (or equivalent) of the div element in your index.html window, you will need to send a message to your render thread requesting this information. Following this, you will then need your render thread to send the innerText back to your main thread for processing (saving).

Electron's Inter-Process Communication can be confusing at times but if implemented correctly it can be simple and safe.

To learn more about the processes involved you will want to read and try and understand the following links:

ipcMain.on()
webContents.send()
Context Isolation
contextBridge

Let's begin with building out your html document first. At a minimum it must include an editable <div> tag and a 'save' button.

index.html (render thread)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <meta charset="UTF-8" />
        <title>Test Editor</title>
        <style>
            #editor {
                width: 50vw;
                height: 50vh;
            }
        <style>
    </head>

    <body>
        <div id="content" contenteditable="true"></div>
        <input type="button" id="save" value="Save">
    </body>

    <script src="script.js"></script>
</html>

See Example: A simple but complete rich text editor for some cool ideas.

Now let's add the 'save' button and IPC message functionality.

script.js (render thread)

// IIFE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression)
(function() => {
    let content = document.getElemetById('content').innerText;

    document.getElementById('save').addEventListener('click', saveContent(content));

    window.ipcRender.receive('editor:getContent', () => { saveContent(content); });
});

function saveContent(content) {
    window.ipcRender.send('editor:saveContent', content);
}

Here is your main.js file with the following updates.

Add Electron's ipcMain module.
Add the win object to the top scope so it is noit garbage collected.
Listen for message(s) from the render thread (using an IFFE).
Add the saveContent() function (to be fully fleshed out by you).
Remove const from the new BrowserWindow line.
Return win from the createWindow() function so it can be referenced later on.
Update the globalShortcut ctrl+s function.

main.js (main thread)

const { app, BrowserWindow, globalShortcut, ipcMain } = require('electron');
const path = require('path');

let win = null;

// IIFE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression)
(function() => {
  ipcMain.on('editor:saveContent', (event, content) => { saveContent(content); });
})();

function saveContent(content) {
  console.log("saving...");
  // Save content...
  console.log("saved...");
}

// Create the main window
function createWindow() {

  // Adjust a few settings
  win = new BrowserWindow({
    // What the height and width that you open up to
    width: 500,
    height: 600,

    // Minimun width and height
    minWidth: 400,
    minHeight: 400,

    icon: __dirname + '/icon.png',
    
    // Change the window title
    title: "text editor",

    webPreferences: {
      // Preload so that the javascript can access the text you write
      preload: path.join(__dirname, 'preload.js'),
    }    
  });
  
  win.loadFile('index.html');

  // Remove that ugly title bar and remove unnecessary keyboard shortcuts
  win.removeMenu();

  return win;
}

// Create window on ready so that no nasty errors happen
app.on('ready', () => {
  // Create the window.
  win = createWindow();

  // Global shortcut so the user has the ability to exit
  globalShortcut.register('ctrl+e', () => {
    console.log("exiting...");
    app.exit();
  });

  // Global shortcut to save editable content.
  globalShortcut.register('ctrl+s', () => {
    console.log('ctrl+s pressed.');
    win.webContents.send('editor:getContent');
  });
})

// when all windows close this app actually closes
app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
  if (process !== 'darwin') app.quit();
})

Note that I have left the actual saving to the filesystem functionality to you. See Node.js: fs.writeFile() for more information.

Ok, the last piece of the puzzle is a working preload.js script. This is the script that grants the use of a list of whitelisted channels between the main and render threads.

In here we add the editor:saveContent and editor:getContent channel names.

preload.js (main thread)

const contextBridge = require('electron').contextBridge;
const ipcRenderer = require('electron').ipcRenderer;

// White-listed channels.
const ipc = {
  'render': {
    // From render to main.
    'send': [
      'editor:saveContent'
    ],
    // From main to render.
    'receive': [
      'editor:getContent'
    ],
    // From render to main and back again.
    'sendReceive': []
  }
};

contextBridge.exposeInMainWorld(
  // Allowed 'ipcRenderer' methods.
  'ipcRender', {
    // From render to main.
    send: (channel, args) => {
      let validChannels = ipc.render.send;
      if (validChannels.includes(channel)) {
        ipcRenderer.send(channel, args);
      }
    },
    // From main to render.
    receive: (channel, listener) => {
      let validChannels = ipc.render.receive;
      if (validChannels.includes(channel)) {
        // Deliberately strip event as it includes `sender`
        ipcRenderer.on(channel, (event, ...args) => listener(...args));
      }
    },
    // From render to main and back again.
    invoke: (channel, args) => {
      let validChannels = ipc.render.sendReceive;
      if (validChannels.includes(channel)) {
        return ipcRenderer.invoke(channel, args);
      }
    }
  }
);

Note that I do not perform any functions so-to-speak in the preload script. I only manage a list
of channel names and the transfer of any data associated with those channel names.

How can I determine the type of an HTML element in JavaScript?

nodeName is the attribute you are looking for. For example:

var elt = document.getElementById('foo');
console.log(elt.nodeName);

Note that nodeName returns the element name capitalized and without the angle brackets, which means that if you want to check if an element is an <div> element you could do it as follows:

elt.nodeName == "DIV"

While this would not give you the expected results:

elt.nodeName == "<div>"

How to get the dom element in js file when html document is rendered by jQuery?

Welcome to Stack Overflow, marcus!

The first thing will be to make sure that your load function has executed before the contents of a.js is excecuted. So if your index.html delays the loading of a.html until after pageload (as it looks now), then make sure a.js, which tries to get .test-img, also happens after pageload. If that is the case, everything should be fine! a.js will be executed from within your index.html, which will have your a.html inside its DOM.

Note that you could consider using jQuery.getScript() to execute a.js right after you have loaded a.html. Then a.js itself doesn't need to worry about delaying execution.

How to Get the HTML for a Dom Element in JavaScript