Widget DOM Element Structure
All web Kendo UI widgets keep references to the element and wrapper DOM elements and all hybrid Kendo UI widgets keep references to the element DOM element only.
element is the element from which the widget is initialized. Depending on the widget, element can be visible (for example, in the AutoComplete, Calendar, and DatePicker), or hidden (for example, in the DropDownList and Upload). A reference to this element is also returned by the initialization statement. Obtaining a reference to the element of the widget from the widget object is a relatively rare scenario but might be helpful in specific cases especially when you want to avoid hardcoding IDs in jQuery selectors.
wrapper is the outermost element which is a part of the widget. Depending on the widget and scenario, the wrapper might be the same as element. For example, if the Grid is initialized from a <div>, the two references match; if the Grid is initialized from a <table>, then element points to <table> while wrapper points to <div>. A reference to the widget wrapper might be needed during DOM or CSS manipulations. For example, to hide a widget, you need to hide the wrapper. Hiding the element might partially hide the widget or not hide it at all. wrapper is also the most suitable HTML node for appending custom CSS classes.
The following example demonstrates how to use the element and wrapper references.
<div id="myWindow">...window content...</div>
<script>
// Initialize the widget which also returns the widget element.
var winElement1 = $("#myWindow").kendoWindow( { /*...*/ } ); // Returns div#myWindow as a jQuery object.
var winObject = $("#myWindow").data("kendoWindow");
// Other ways to get the widget element.
var winElement2 = $("#myWindow");
var winElement3 = $("#myWindow").data("kendoWindow").element; // Returns div#myWindow as a jQuery object.
var winElement4 = winObject.element;
// Get the wrapper.
var winWrapper1 = $("#myWindow").data("kendoWindow").wrapper; // Returns div.k-window as a jQuery object.
var winWrapper2 = winObject.wrapper; // returns div.k-window as a jQuery object
</script>