Learn JavaScript with a Fun Task: Create a Personalized Greeting!
Learning JavaScript is exciting when you can immediately use it to do cool things. In this post, we’ll do a simple task to help you get started with JavaScript. Let’s go!
Task: Making a Personalized Greeting
Your job is to make a webpage where people can type their name and get a special greeting just for them.
Steps to Complete the Task:
Setting Up the Webpage:
First, make a webpage with a place for people to type their name and a spot to show the greeting
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>Greeting Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome!</h1>
<form id="nameForm">
<label for="nameInput">Enter your name:</label>
<input type="text" id="nameInput">
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
<div id="greetingMessage"></div>
<script>
// JavaScript code goes here
</script>
</body>
</html>
2.Adding JavaScript Magic:
Next, add JavaScript to make the greeting happen when someone types their name and clicks the button.
document.getElementById('nameForm').addEventListener('submit', function(event) {
event.preventDefault(); // Prevents the form from doing its default action
const nameInput = document.getElementById('nameInput');
const name = nameInput.value;
const greetingMessage = document.getElementById('greetingMessage');
greetingMessage.textContent = "Hello, " + name + "! Welcome to our website.";
});
Explanation
document.getElementById('nameForm').addEventListener('submit', function(event) { ... })
:- This code adds an event listener to the form element with the ID ‘nameForm’. It listens for the ‘submit’ event, which occurs when the form is submitted.
- The function inside the
addEventListener
method is executed when the form is submitted.
event.preventDefault();
:- This line prevents the default action of the form, which is to submit and reload the page. By calling
event.preventDefault()
, we ensure that the form submission is handled by our JavaScript code instead of the browser’s default behavior.
- This line prevents the default action of the form, which is to submit and reload the page. By calling
const nameInput = document.getElementById('nameInput');
andconst name = nameInput.value;
:- These lines retrieve the value entered in the input field with the ID ‘nameInput’ and store it in a variable named ‘name’. We split it into two steps for clarity.
const greetingMessage = document.getElementById('greetingMessage');
andgreetingMessage.textContent = "Hello, " + name + "! Welcome to our website.";
:- These lines select the HTML element with the ID ‘greetingMessage’, which is the placeholder where we want to display the greeting message.
- We set the
textContent
property of thegreetingMessage
element to the constructed greeting message. Here, we concatenate the string “Hello, ” with the value of the ‘name’ variable and “Welcome to our website.” using the ‘+’ operator.
Great job! You’ve just made a webpage that greets people by their name. This shows how JavaScript can make websites more interactive. Keep practicing and having fun with JavaScript!