How access an element using getElementById() without absolute path?

Question

hello,
Currently I'm working on a JSF woodstock project.
I'm trying to acceess the different components used the JSF page inside a javascript by using document.getElementById()
this is a part of code in my JSF file. please have a look on it.
<webuijsf:form id="form1">
                        <webuijsf:panelGroup id="pnlGrpBankListMainContainer" style="left:2px; top:89px; margin-left:1.5%; margin-top:1%; width:50%; position:absolute;">
                            <webuijsf:table augmentTitle="true" title="#{BankList.screenName}" id="table1" paginateButton="true"
                                paginationControls="true" clearSortButton="true" extraActionTopHtml="style='height:35px'">
                                <f:facet name="actionsTop" >
                                    <webuijsf:panelGroup id="grpPnlButtons">
                                        <webuijsf:checkbox binding="#{BankList.chkBoxSelectAllItems}" id="chkBoxSelectAllItems" name="chkBoxSelectAllItems" rendered="#{BankList.renderChkBoxAndImgSeparator}"
                                            selectedValue="selectAllItems" onClick="selectAllTableRows(this,'chkBoxBankListSelectedRowId',5);"/>
                                        <webuijsf:image id="imgSeparator" url="/resources/images/select_image_separator.gif" rendered="#{BankList.renderChkBoxAndImgSeparator}" />
                                        <webuijsf:button id="btnAdd" rendered="#{BankList.renderAddButton}"  text="Add" styleClass="btnStyle" immediate="true"
                                            onClick="return openAdd('#{BankList.requestContextPath}/faces/BankEntry.jsp', 500, 755,'Add  #{BankList.screenIdentifier}', '&action=ADD');"/>
                                        <webuijsf:button id="btnEdit"  rendered="#{BankList.renderEditButton}"  text="Edit" styleClass="btnStyle" disabled="#{BankList.disableEditButton}"
                                            onClick = "return openEdit('#{BankList.requestContextPath}/faces/BankEntry.jsp', 'chkBoxBankListSelectedRowId', 500, 755,'Edit  #{BankList.screenIdentifier}', '&action=EDIT');"/>
                                        <webuijsf:button id="btnDelete"  text="Delete" onClick="return confirmRecordsDelete();"  rendered="#{BankList.renderDeleteButton}"  styleClass="btnStyle" disabled="#{BankList.disableDeleteButton}"/>
                                        <webuijsf:button id="btnExportXls" disabled="#{BankList.disableExcelButton}" rendered="#{BankList.renderXlsButton}"
                                            styleClass="btnStyle #{BankList.excelButtonStyleClass}" style="position:relative; margin-left: 10px"
                                            text="x" onMouseOver="setMouseOverStyle(this);" onMouseOut="setMouseOutStyle(this);"
                                            onClick="return openXlsExport('#{BankList.requestContextPath}/faces/Export.jsp', 'chkBoxBankListSelectedRowId', 'Export  #{BankList.screenName}', '&screenIdentifier=#{BankList.screenIdentifier}');">
                                        </webuijsf:button>
                                    </webuijsf:panelGroup>
                                </f:facet>when i access button element using absolute path like
document.getElementById("form1:pnlGrpBankListMainContainer:table1:grpPnlButtons:btnEdit") it works fine.
But when i try to access it using
document.getElementById("form1:table1:btnEdit") it returns null.
I've common javascrpt functions for all the screens.
so i do not want to change the current javascript functionality nor do i want want to specify complete path for an element.
So is there any way so that i can access the elements without absolute path or any othet solution?
Edited by: sonali_amonkar on Apr 1, 2008 11:17 PM

Answer 1

thanks for your reply mjswallow.
Do you mean that I'll write a new javascript which will accept all the parent elements and inside this method I'lll call the common javascript methods that are present in our project?
but this solution would result in changing the already existing javascript methods that i coded for all screens. right?
that is i do not want to change.
any other solutions you can think of?