Behaviors > Behaviors panel

Behaviors panel

Use the Behaviors panel to attach behaviors to page elements (more specifically to tags) and to modify parameters of previously attached behaviors. For background information about what behaviors are and how they work, see Behaviors overview. For information on how to attach a behavior to an event, see Attaching a behavior.

To open the Behaviors panel, choose Window > Behaviors.

The tag that's currently selected in the Document window appears in the title bar of the Behaviors panel. Behaviors that have already been attached to the currently selected page element appear in the behavior list (the main area of the panel), listed alphabetically by event. If there are several actions for the same event, the actions appear in the order in which they will execute. If no behaviors appear in the behavior list, then no behaviors have been attached to the currently selected element.

The Behaviors panel has the following options:

Actions (+) is a pop-up menu of actions that can be attached to the currently selected element. When you choose an action from this list, a dialog box appears in which you can specify parameters for the action. If all of the actions are dimmed, then there are no events that can be generated by the selected element.

Delete (-) removes the selected event and action from the behavior list.

Up and down arrow buttons move the selected action up or down in the behavior list for a particular event. Actions for a given event are executed in the specified order. The order of actions can be changed only for a particular event—for example, you can change the order in which several actions occur for the onLoad event, but all the onLoad actions stay together in the behavior list. The arrow buttons are disabled for actions that can't be moved up or down in the list.

Events (the menu that appears when you click the arrow button next to the selected event name in the behavior list) is a pop-up menu of all the events that can trigger the action. This menu is visible only when an event in the behavior list is selected. Different events appear depending on the object selected. If the events you expect don't appear, make sure the correct page element or tag is selected. (To select a specific tag, use the tag selector at the bottom left of the Document window.) Also make sure you've selected the correct browser or browsers in the Show Events For submenu.

Note: Event names in parentheses are available only for links; choosing one of these event names automatically adds a null link to the selected page element, and attaches the behavior to that link instead of to the element itself. The null link is specified as a href="javascript:;" in the HTML code.

Show Events For (the submenu in the Events menu) specifies the browsers in which the current behavior should work. The selection you make from this menu determines which events appear in the Events pop-up menu. Older browsers generally support fewer events than newer browsers, and in most cases, the more general your choice of target browsers, the fewer events are shown, because only events that are available in all of the requested browsers are shown. For example, if you select 3.0 and Later Browsers, then the only events you can choose are those that were available in all Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer versions from 3.0 on—a very limited list of events.