HTML Scripts

Add scripts to HTML pages to make them more dynamic and interactive.

Examples

Insert a script
This example demonstrates how to insert a script into your HTML document.

Work with browsers that do not support scripts
This example demonstrates how to handle browsers that do not support scripting.

Insert a Script into HTML Page

A script in HTML is defined with the <script> tag. Note that you will have to use the type attribute to specify the scripting language.

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>

<script type="text/javascript">
document.write("Hello World!")
</script>

</body>
</html>

The script above will produce this output:

Hello World!

Note: To learn more about scripting in HTML, visit our JavaScript School.

How to Handle Older Browsers

A browser that does not recognize the <script> tag at all, will display the <script> tag's content as text on the page. To prevent the browser from doing this, you should hide the script in comment tags. An old browser (that does not recognize the <script> tag) will ignore the comment and it will not write the tag's content on the page, while a new browser will understand that the script should be executed, even if it is surrounded by comment tags.

Example

JavaScript:
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>

VBScript:
<script type="text/vbscript">

</script>

The <noscript> Tag

In addition to hiding the script inside a comment, you can also add a <noscript> tag.

The <noscript> tag is used to define an alternate text if a script is NOT executed. This tag is used for browsers that recognize the <script> tag, but does not support the script inside, so this browser will display the text inside the <noscript> tag instead. However, if a browser supports the script inside the <script> tag it will ignore the <noscript> tag.

Example

JavaScript:
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>
<noscript>Your browser does not support JavaScript!</noscript>

VBScript:
<script type="text/vbscript">

</script>
<noscript>Your browser does not support VBScript!</noscript>

Script Tags:

NN: Netscape, IE: Internet Explorer, W3C: Web Standard

Start Tag	NN	IE	W3C	Purpose
<script>	3.0	3.0	3.2	Defines a script
<noscript>	3.0	3.0	4.0	Defines an alternate text if the script is not executed
<object>		3.0	4.0	Defines an embedded object
<param>	3.0	3.0	3.2	Defines run-time settings (parameters) for an object
<applet>				Deprecated. Use <object> instead

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