Need help in getting common DOM API to work

Question

Grettings, all -
I'm up against the wall. I have spend a lot of time trying to get Common DOM API to work to no avial. So far I tried it with Netscape 6.2.3, Mozilla 1.0 and MSIE 6. My problem is that while I get non-null Document, all calls on it return null. Here is the code snippet I have:
public class Foo extends Applet {
Applet m_appletThis;
StringBuffer m_sbuf;
public void init() {
m_appletThis = this;
m_sbuf = new StringBuffer();
addItem("initializing... ");
try {
JSObject jsWin = JSObject.getWindow(this);
JSObject jsDoc = (JSObject)jsWin.getMember("document");
String sName = (String)jsDoc.getMember("name");
Object oLocation = (JSObject)jsDoc.getMember("location");
addItem("location=" + oLocation);
String sTitle = (String)jsDoc.getMember("title");
addItem("title=" + sTitle);
addItem("initialized! ");
catch (JSException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
public void start() {
addItem("starting... ");
DOMService ds = null;
try {
ds = DOMService.getService(this);
String sTitle = (String)ds.invokeAndWait(new DOMAction() {
public Object run(DOMAccessor da) {
Document doc = da.getDocument(m_appletThis);
return doc.getNodeValue();
addItem(sTitle);
// let's try again
Document doc = (Document)ds.invokeAndWait(new DOMAction() {
public Object run(DOMAccessor da) {
Document doc;
NamedNodeMap nnm;
Node node;
doc = (Document)da.getDocument(m_appletThis);
nnm = doc.getAttributes();
NodeList nl = doc.getChildNodes();
if (null == nl)
addItem("no children!");
else
for (int i = 0; i < nl.getLength(); i++) {
node = nl.item(i);
addItem((null == node) ?
("no node" + i) : node.getNodeName());
if (null == nnm)
addItem("no attribs!");
else {
node = nnm.getNamedItem("location");
if (null == node)
addItem("no node!");
else
addItem(node.getNodeValue());
return doc;
catch (DOMUnsupportedException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
catch (DOMAccessException e2) {
e2.printStackTrace();
addItem("started! ");
public void stop() {
addItem("stopping... ");
public void destroy() {
addItem("preparing for unloading...");
void addItem(String newWord) {
System.out.println(newWord);
m_sbuf.append(newWord + "\r\n");
repaint();
public void paint(Graphics g) {
Dimension dim = getSize();
//Draw a Rectangle around the applet's display area.
g.drawRect(0, 0, dim.width - 1, dim.height - 1);
//Draw the current string inside the rectangle.
g.drawString(m_sbuf.toString(), 5, 15);
This produces the following output:
initializing...
location=file:///foo.bar.html
title=
initialized!
starting...
null
no children!
no attribs!
started!
As starting/started lines show all of my attempts to get access to browsers DOM fail.
I will really appreciate any advice you can provide. Thanks in advance.
- Andrew

Answer 1

hi,
i desperately tried similar things and, after studying some forum entries, it seems to me that common dom DOES NOT WORK...
sorry for us, but bugparade promises to fix that in 1.4.2 (somewhen in 2003 :-( )
if you need dom-access try jsobject or the ibm directDOM-technology, that seems to work much better..
greets,
dirk