TangoRangers.com's Blog

Update (March 25th, 2009):
I have created a page on the main site so that you can see how the code works, it may be easier to read than this. Check it out here

After scouring the net for information I finally got my answer from JimmySeal at TechGuy.org. Turns out the process is very simple.

In my first example I want to hide just one div tag when a check box is clicked. The process is a simple one, all we need to do is create a div with an id argument. Like div id=”hideme”. I prefer to use external js files to hold my javascript functions. Lets call it junctions.js. In this file lets put this bit of code.

function toggle_visibility(hideme)
{
	var e = document.getElementById(hideme);
	if(e.style.display == 'block')
		e.style.display = 'none';
	else
		e.style.display = 'block';
}

This will hide the div tag with id hideme
So in my html file I have something like this. (My example is in an input form)

<b>Show the field</b><input type="checkbox" name="a_name" value="a_name" onClick="toggle_visibility('hideme');">
<div id="hideme" style="display:block;">
	<b>was hidden</b><textarea name="some_name" cols="40" rows="5"></textarea><br />
</div>

Notice that the div id and the onClick functions are the same name, hideme. That’s it! How when the box is checked it will hide that one div tag.

What if you want to hide multiple div tags. Unfortunately the above script will not work simply because you can’t have more than one div id per page. You must use div class.

Open up your functions.js file and put this in.

var hidden = false;
function getElementsByClass(searchClass, domNode, tagName) {
	if (domNode == null) domNode = document;
	if (tagName == null) tagName = '*';
	var el = new Array();
	var tags = domNode.getElementsByTagName(tagName);
	var tcl = " "+searchClass+" ";
	for(i=0,j=0; i<tags.length; i++) {
		var test = " " + tags[i].className + " ";
		if (test.indexOf(tcl) != -1)
		el[j++] = tags[i];
	}
	return el;
}
 
function toggle_hideme()
{
	hidden = !hidden;
	var newDisplay;
	if(hidden)
	{
		newDisplay = 'none';
	}
	else
	{
		newDisplay = 'block';
	}
	var hellos = getElementsByClass("div_class_name", null, "div");
	for(var i = 0; i < hellos.length; i++)
	{
		hellos[i].style.display = newDisplay;
	}
}

Now for the form code example

<input type="checkbox" name="a_name" value="a_name" onClick="toggle_hideme('div_class_name');">
<div class="div_class_name">
	Blah Blah Blah
</div>
<div class="something_else">
	What ever is here will not disappear!
</div>
<div class="div_class_name">
	more blah blah blah
</div>

The only thing you need to pay attention to here is div_class_name just change it to what ever you want to call your div tag.

EDIT NOTE:
I just want to say that I’ve been getting a lot of hits here, but no one leaves me any comments. How do I know if this is helpful? Please leave a comment. I won’t sell your e-mails or anything. If you so desire enter in a fake e-mail, I don’t care. I just want to know. Thank you.

UPDATE!
http://blog.tangorangers.com/2009/08/using-javascript-to-hide-singlemultiple-div-tags-with-the-same-name-part-2/