Question

This may be a subjective question. If so please close it.

Does onclick count as embedded JavaScript?

Or is it just usually the method called that’s actually the JavaScript part?

Answer 1

I’m not sure what you’re asking, but I’ll have a go anyway.

The onclick attribute that you can add to HTML elements (i.e. <a onclick="">) is HTML. However, its value is JavaScript that gets run when the user clicks on the element. That JavaScript (along with the association between that JavaScript and the HTML element’s click event) is indeed embedded in the HTML page, meaning you have to change your HTML page to change the JavaScript (or remove the association).

To avoid embedding JavaScript into your HTML page, you can instead add a handler function to the onclick DOM property of an element via JavaScript:

1. Add a JavaScript file to your page, via the <script src=""> tag.
2. In that file, set some code to run on page load (or when the DOM is ready, which is a whole other topic in itself).
3. Have that code add an onclick handler function to an HTML element.

E.g. if your HTML looked like this

<a id="needs_onclick">I need an onclick handler</a>

Then you could add an onclick handler to the link like this:

window.onload = function(){
    document.getElementById("needs_onclick").onclick = function(){
        alert("Clicked!");
    }
}

This approach would not be described as “embedded JavaScript”, as it uses the onclick DOM property, not the onclick attribute.