Question

Is is possible to extend a native HTML table?

C# example: public class: htmltable{}

or something like:

HTMLTable.prototype.myType=function(){
 this.clss='myClass';
 this.setAttribute('class',this.clss);
}

Answer 1

Where browsers have implemented an inheritance scheme for DOM elements, you can usually extend them according to that scheme. Most modern browsers implement prototype inheritance that is consistent with ECMA-262, however do not use it because:

1. User agents are not required to implement inheritance, many (most?) don’t. Note that there are many user agents other than browsers
2. Even if browsers do implement inheritance, there’s no requirement for it to be consistent with ECMA-262 (though it would be sensible to do so)
3. Your extensions may clash with current or future host object extensions in some or all browsers

Prototype.js uses DOM element inheritance in UAs that support it, and uses a fallback of “extending” DOM elements themselves where they don’t. It has recently abandoned that strategy for the reasons noted above. It was also error prone and slow.