You could do something like this
HTML
<div>Stuff before</div>
<div>
<a id="save" href="#">Save</a>
<a id="cancel" href="#">Cancel</a>
<a id="delete" href="#">Delete</a>
</div>
<div>Stuff after</div>
Javascript
function emptyNode(node) {
while (node.firstChild) {
node.removeChild(node.firstChild);
}
}
function saveNote(e) {
var parent = e.target.parentNode,
edit = document.createElement("a");
emptyNode(parent);
edit.id = "edit";
edit.href = "#";
edit.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Edit"));
parent.appendChild(edit);
}
document.getElementById("save").addEventListener("click", saveNote, false);
On jsfiddle
Note: this requires support of addEventListener
which is easily dealt with