htmlElement

HTMLElement, commonly referred to as the HTMLElement interface, is a standard part of the Document Object Model (DOM) that represents any HTML element in a document. It sits within the Element branch of the DOM and is implemented by all concrete HTML element types, such as div, span, p, and input. While specific elements expose additional behavior through specialized interfaces (for example HTMLDivElement or HTMLInputElement), HTMLElement provides a common set of capabilities shared by most elements.

In practice, scripts interact with DOM nodes through the HTMLElement interface when manipulating attributes, styles, and content. It defines properties and methods that are broadly applicable across HTML elements, while more specialized interfaces extend its functionality for particular element types.

Key properties include id, className, and tagName (tagName is read-only and typically upper-case). classList offers fine-grained class manipulation, and style exposes inline CSS. The dataset property presents data-* attributes as a camelCased map. Other commonly used properties include contentEditable, draggable, hidden, tabIndex, dir, and title. For content, innerHTML returns the element’s markup, innerText gives visible text, and textContent provides the text content of the node and its descendants; outerHTML includes the element’s own markup.

Common methods include focus(), blur(), and click() to manage interaction programmatically. Attribute access generally uses getAttribute and setAttribute, while direct property assignment works for many standard attributes.

Instances are created with document.createElement(tagName) and are typed as their specific element interface (for example HTMLDivElement) while all of them implement the HTMLElement interface.