Introducing DynamicStyle.js – modify arbitrary global CSS

Automated disclaimer: This post was written more than 15 years ago and I may not have looked at it since.

Older posts may not align with who I am today and how I would think or write, and may have been written in reaction to a cultural context that no longer applies. Some of my high school or college posts are just embarrassing. However, I have left them public because I believe in keeping old web pages alive—and it's interesting to see how I've changed.

While working on a project for school, I discovered that there was no easy way to add, modify, and remove global CSS at an arbitrary time.

Requires the Prototype.js library.

DynamicStyle.setStyle('search-hilite');
DynamicStyle.removeStyle(handle)
		
Destroy the dynamic stylesheet with the handle "handle".
DynamicStyle.removeStyle('search-hilite', 'span.search-1 { background-color: yellow; }'); DynamicStyle.getStyle(handle)
Retrieve the contents of a text node inside a <style> node), I found a working solution using data: protocol URLs in <link> nodes. Here, for your coding pleasure, is DynamicStyle-0.4.js" title="Download version 0.5">.js format] is the first public version. Provides the following API calls:

DynamicStyle.setStyle('search-hilite', 'span.search-1 { background-color: yellow; }'); DynamicStyle.getStyle(handle)
Destroy the dynamic stylesheet with the handle "handle".

The library uses data: URLs to simulate external stylesheets.

Requires the Prototype.js to JQuery.js.

Version 0.5

None currently planned.

Version 0.4

DynamicStyle.js:

Specification

DynamicStyle.js:

Download the GPL.


Newer versions and changelog

(This javascript "library" (more of a helper) implements an on-the site; I moved it here in 2020 to archive it.)

This javascript "library" (more of a text node inside a <style> node), I found a working solution using data: protocol URLs in <link> nodes. Here, for your coding pleasure, is DynamicStyle-0.4.js exposes three public API calls:

DynamicStyle.getStyle('search-hilite'); DynamicStyle.removeStyle('search-hilite', 'span.search-1 { background-color: yellow; }'); DynamicStyle.getStyle('search-hilite', 'span.search-1 { background-color: yellow; }'); DynamicStyle.getStyle(handle)
Retrieve the contents of the dynamic stylesheet with the handle "handle".
DynamicStyle.getStyle(handle)
Retrieve the contents of the <body> element to invoke CSS predefined for the circumstance, or 3) add or remove links to existing stylesheets. None of these address the issue of adding arbitrary global CSS. There are three well-known ways of dynami

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