Is there a shorter way of writing document.getElementById('nodename')?

Typing document.getElementById('nodename') every time you need to address a specific node is a lot of overkill.

Take for example this block of code:

function showSite(){ document.getElementById('content').style.display="block"; document.getElementById('sitemenu').style.display="block"; document.getElementById('status').innerHTML="site is loaded"; }

With the coming of the prototype javascript library, scriptkiddies all over the world just use the $ sign to address a node, if they had first defined the following function, also present in that library:

function $(nodename){ return(document.getElementById(nodename)); }

Note that the function name is in fact only "$", a sign used in other programming languages, not javascript, to denote a variable.

Once defined, the previously stated block of code can be rewritten as:

function showSite(){ $('content').style.display="block"; $('sitemenu').style.display="block"; $('status').innerHTML="site is loaded"; }

Taking up less characters...

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