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How to Display a Custom Daily Greeting

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Learn how to use JavaScript to create a custom daily message displaying a different greeting depending on the day of the week.

Outline

Introduction

I discovered a cool little trick while source diving through Scott Mathson’s web site. With just a couple lines of JavaScript you can create a message that displays a different greeting depending on the day of the week.

Create a Script with a Weekday Array

Create a <script> tag with type of text/javascript. Define a variable called weekday with a different greeting set to each index.

<script type="text/javascript">
var weekday = new Array(7)
weekday[0] = "spectacular Sunday"
weekday[1] = "marvelous Monday"
weekday[2] = "terrific Tuesday"
weekday[3] = "wonderful Wednesday"
weekday[4] = "totally cool Thursday"
weekday[5] = "fantastic Friday"
weekday[6] = "sweet Saturday"
</script>

Set Weekday Value to the Current Date

Also inside the script tag, create a variable called currentDate set with the Date() object and then set the current day to weekdayValue.

var currentDate = new Date()
weekdayValue = currentDate.getDay()

Write to the Document

Use the Document.write() method to write a string of text to the document with paragraph tags containing the weekday value..

document.write(
'<p>Have a ' + weekday[weekdayValue] + '!</p>'
)

Noscript Fallback

Lastly, you’ll want to include a <noscript> tag in case the user has JavaScript turned off in their browser.

<noscript>
<p>Have a great day!</p>
</noscript>

Full Script

<script type="text/javascript">
var weekday = new Array(7)
weekday[0] = "spectacular Sunday"
weekday[1] = "marvelous Monday"
weekday[2] = "terrific Tuesday"
weekday[3] = "wonderful Wednesday"
weekday[4] = "totally cool Thursday"
weekday[5] = "fantastic Friday"
weekday[6] = "sweet Saturday"
var currentDate = new Date()
weekdayValue = currentDate.getDay()
document.write(
'<p>Have a ' + weekday[weekdayValue] + '!</p>'
)
</script>
<noscript>
<p>Have a great day!</p>
</noscript>