How to change Javascript to work with IE

[penagate]

The code should work in Internet Explorer versions 9+. In earlier versions the non-standard 'attachEvent' method must be used instead of 'addEventListener'.

Also, I recommend attaching all event listeners using JavaScript instead of HTML attributes. This keeps behaviour and presentation as separate as possible.

With those things in mind, here is how I would restructure the code:

function listen(who, event, callback)
{
	if (who.addEventListener)
		who.addEventListener(event, callback, false);
	else if (who.attachEvent)
		who.attachEvent('on' + event, callback);
}

function createListener()
{
	var handler = function(event) {
		var element = event.target;
		if (element !== document.body)
		{
			if (element.className === '')
				element.className = 'highlight';
			else
				element.className = '';
		}
	};
	
	listen(document, 'click', handler);
}

listen(document, 'ready', createListener);

Untested, so there might be some typos.


Edit: The document.ready listener isn't required in this particular case because you can attach the document.click listener immediately, but I added it as an example of an alternative to your original 'onload' method.