how to use gel in servicenow

[shank1]

Hi all,

I wanted to know how to make use of gel in servicenow.

Some of the lines I have come across:

1.
com = gel("activity-stream-comments-textarea");
	if (com)
		com.focus();
	return;

2. gel('sysparm_item_guid').value

so I wanted to know what are those values "activity-stream-comments-textarea" and ''sysparm_item_guid'"

how and where those values can be found and used.

any other simple example to make use of gel would be greatly helpful

thanks in advance 🙂

[rahulpandey]

Hi, gel is same as getElementbyID(''element'). This is generally to manipulate the HTML. Let me say this, service now do not encourage to use this way of manipulation (dom manipulation) because I'd of any element can change with version upgrade. activity-stream-comments-textarea :- this gives you value of activity-stream-comments-textarea field gel('sysparm_item_guid').value same goes to this. Useage of these values depends on logic you are applying. Check this https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/met_document_getelementbyid.asp

[shank1]

Hi Rahul, 

Yes I know that its not recommended. but I just wanted to know how it works.

How can I get the element ID of a particular field.

TIA

[rahulpandey]

You can open browser developer tool(F12) and you can see all the elements their attributes (including I'd).

[Paul Curwen · Accepted solution]

Hi Shanks,

Rahulpandey is correct in stating that use introduces risk to future upgrades and be aware that that getElementbyID(''element') will not work in Service Portal at all, so you should not use it for Catalog Scripts etc.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/jakarta-servicenow-platform/page/build/service-portal/concept/uns...

So avoid using if you can but if you absolutely must, then see these useful articles for full description of use/issue:

https://snprotips.com/blog/2017/7/21/how-to-enable-dom-manipulation-in-the-servicenow-service-portal

http://www.snc-blog.com/2011/03/03/altering-the-dom-document-object-model-with-javascript/

Regards,

Paul