Make Text Blink Using Javascript

For those who miss the old HTML blink tag, there are a couple of ways to get it back.

The following code is meant to be copied and pasted. It's not the best teaching code. It's only in the Beginners' section because I accidently put it here :)

The first script will work on Windows Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Begin Copy and Paste Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
spe=500;
na=document.all.tags("blink");
swi=1;
bringBackBlinky();

function bringBackBlinky() {

if (swi == 1) {
sho="visible";
swi=0;
}
else {
sho="hidden";
swi=1;
}

for(i=0;i<na.length;i++) {
na[i].style.visibility=sho;
}

setTimeout("bringBackBlinky()", spe);
}
-->
</script>

We are having a <blink>good</blink> time. Simply the <blink>BEST!!!</blink>

End Copy and Paste Code:


-We set the speed in our spe variable to half a second (500 milliseconds).
-We store all blink tags on the page into our array variable na.
-We set our variable swi to 1 to start things off.
-We call our Blinky function.
-We write our function...
---If our var swi equals 1, set it to 0 and set our variable sho to "visible".
---The next time our function is called, swi will be set to 0 and the next condition will execute.
---Our next condition says set swi back to 1, and set sho to "hidden".

-Now we get clever by looping for each <blink> tag (na.length has that value)
-We use our variable i as the index number of our array na.
-We use Javascript's built-in style method and set the visibility property to our variable sho.
-The sho variable will toggle back and forth between "hidden" and "visible" each time it is called when we...
-Use setTimeout to call our function again with our spe variable plugged in.

NOTE: The for loop is changing all the <blink> tags on the page to visible or hidden.

I warned it wasn't good learning code :)


To make some text blink in Safari AND Windows IE, you are sort of limited, but I did come up with a little snippet that works for one word...

INTERRUPT: I couldn't accept that I couldn't make it work for both, so I dug in some more and came up with a way to make it work. SO NOW, the above example will work with <blink> tags, the following example will work with name tags, <a name=mi>, substituting mi for whatever your HTML name attributes are set to. Then just set the NameOfYourTags variable in the top of the script.

NOTE: To make it work for Safari, the script needs to come AFTER the text, otherwise the tags are not grabbed by Javascript's getElementByName.


Begin Copy and Paste Code:

We are having a <a name=mi>good</a> time. Simply the <a name=mi>BEST</a>!!!

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--

spe=500;
NameOfYourTags="mi";

swi=1;
na=document.getElementsByName(NameOfYourTags);

bringBackBlinky();

function bringBackBlinky() {

if (swi == 1) {
sho="visible";
swi=0;
}
else {
sho="hidden";
swi=1;
}

for(i=0;i<na.length;i++) {
na[i].style.visibility=sho;
}

setTimeout("bringBackBlinky()", spe);
}
-->
</script>

End Copy and Paste Code:


-This is essentially the same script as above except the second line where we grab the page elements with getElementsByName instead of document.all.tags which doesn't work in Safari.


Resources:
Make a Link Using Javascript
Bold Text in Javascript
Italics in Javascript
Redirect in Javascript
Change Fonts in Javascript
Change Font Size in Javascript

HTML Tags
HTML Color Chart
HTML Codes

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