Best Way to Get All DOM Elements with jQuery

Question

What's the best way to get all of the DOM elements on a page using jQuery?

Thanks,

DLiKS

Edit: This is for use in a script that grayscales an entire page using grayscale.js - http://james.padolsey.com/demos/grayscale/. jQuery because I can! :P

Answer 1

var allOfThem = $('*');

You don't really need jQuery for this:

var allOfThem = document.getElementsByTagName('*');

Answer 2

document.getElementsByTagName("*") will return all DOM elements as "actual" elements, with all their contents and properties and everything.

$('*') or $("body *") will return array of "jQuery objects", each only pointing on true element. To get the true element, you'll have to use the specific jQuery object.

Guess this difference is what causing this behavior of browser crashing when getting all elements vs. getting all jQuery objects.