Automatically Update Your Website Year Using JavaScript in Webflow | Step-by-Step Guide

Published on
July 10, 2019

How to Automatically Update the Year on Your Website Using JavaScript in Webflow

You can update the year on your website automatically using JavaScript in Webflow. This can be a useful function to ensure that your website always displays the current year without manual intervention. In this article, we'll walk through the process of achieving this functionality in Webflow.

Setting up the Design in Webflow

  1. Accessing Design Mode
    To begin, access the Webflow Designer where you can create and design your website.

  2. Adding the Year Element
    Within the footer section of your website, add a text block to display the year. In this example, we’ll use “2015” as a placeholder.

  3. Wrapping the Year in a Span
    Next, wrap the year (e.g., “2015”) inside a <span> element. To do this, select the year, click the paintbrush icon, and convert it into a text span. Then, add a class to the span - for example, “hack-14-year”.

  4. Preview Design
    You can now preview the design to see the year displayed as per your current setup. Keep in mind that it will reflect the static year you initially entered, in this case, 2015.

Implementing JavaScript

Now, we will integrate a JavaScript function to dynamically update the year on the published website.

Code Implementation

Here is the breakdown of the JavaScript code that will facilitate the automatic updating of the year:

<head>  <script>    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {      var yearSpan = document.querySelector('.hack-14-year');      var currentYear = new Date().getFullYear();      yearSpan.textContent = currentYear;    });  </script></head>

Now, let’s take a closer look at each aspect of the code:

  1. Listener for DOM Ready
    The document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() { ... }); part ensures that the code executes once the DOM is fully loaded.

  2. Selecting the Year Span
    Next, we use document.querySelector('.hack-14-year') to select the span element by its class name and store it in the variable yearSpan.

  3. Getting the Current Year
    We then retrieve the current year using new Date().getFullYear() and assign it to the currentYear variable.

  4. Updating the Year Span Content
    Finally, we update the content of the yearSpan to display the currentYear.

By implementing this code within the <head> tag in the Webflow Designer, the year will automatically update whenever the website is accessed.

Publish and Test

Once you have implemented the code and published your website, accessing the live site will reveal that the year displayed in the footer is the current year. This ensures that visitors to your site always see the most up-to-date year without any manual intervention required on your part.

Conclusion

In conclusion, utilizing JavaScript in Webflow allows you to dynamically update the year on your website, providing a seamless and hassle-free experience for both you as the website owner and your site visitors. By following these steps, you can ensure that your website consistently displays the current year, and you can utilize similar techniques to add other dynamic functionalities to your Webflow site.