designMode

By  on  

Every once in a while I stumble upon an API or browser setting that I can't believe ever existed. Such examples can be seen in the numerous String.prototype properties such as bold, italics, and even blink, which wrap given string text in their representative HTML tags. Bizarre.

It was recently brought to my attention the document.designMode API: an on|off switch that acts almost like a contentEdible attribute for the entire document. You can toggle designMode by simply changing the setting:

document.designMode = "on";

With the designMode setting on, you can edit page text, drag and drop assets, and generally cause chaos on the page. This is really nice for prototyping; I'd have loved to have known about this while doing client work.

While I see uses for this API, it does feel a bit bizarre. I'd have liked to have known the origins of this property and its use cases. Have ideas about how you'd use it? Share!

Recent Features

  • By
    How I Stopped WordPress Comment Spam

    I love almost every part of being a tech blogger:  learning, preaching, bantering, researching.  The one part about blogging that I absolutely loathe:  dealing with SPAM comments.  For the past two years, my blog has registered 8,000+ SPAM comments per day.  PER DAY.  Bloating my database...

  • By
    From Webcam to Animated GIF: the Secret Behind chat.meatspac.es!

    My team mate Edna Piranha is not only an awesome hacker; she's also a fantastic philosopher! Communication and online interactions is a subject that has kept her mind busy for a long time, and it has also resulted in a bunch of interesting experimental projects...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create a NoScript Compatible Select Form Element with an onChange Event

    I wouldn't say that I'm addicted to checking Google Analytics but I do check my statistics often. I guess hoping for a huge burst of traffic from some unknown source. Anyway, I have multiple sites set up within my account. The way to...

  • By
    MooTools Typewriter Effect Plugin

    Last week, I read an article in which the author created a typewriter effect using the jQuery JavaScript framework. I was impressed with the idea and execution of the code so I decided to port the effect to MooTools. After about an hour of coding...

Discussion

  1. Hi David,

    thanks for the trigger!
    We digged deeper and unveiled the origin: https://twitter.com/slicknet/status/1180862121371811840

    That was fun :-D

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!