Skip to main content
Practice

Creating HTML Elements and Setting Attributes

How can you add new elements to a web page or set attributes for existing elements?

To accomplish this, we use methods like document.createElement() and Element.setAttribute().

document.createElement("button")

The document.createElement method is used to create new HTML elements.

For example, by passing "button" as a string within the parentheses, a corresponding HTML element is created.

Creating an HTML Element
const newButton = document.createElement('button');
newButton.textContent = 'Click me!';

document.body.appendChild(newButton); // Add the button to the web page

Element.setAttribute(name, value)

The Element.setAttribute method is used to set a new attribute or change the value of an existing attribute for an HTML element.

The target of setAttribute is not the document, but a single HTML element.

The first argument to setAttribute is the attribute's name, and the second argument is the attribute's value.

Setting Attributes on an HTML Element
const newButton = document.createElement('button');

newButton.setAttribute('id', 'specialButton'); // Set the id attribute
newButton.setAttribute('class', 'bigButton'); // Set the class attribute

// The button now has id="specialButton" and class="bigButton" attributes

Want to learn more?

Join CodeFriends Plus membership or enroll in a course to start your journey.