JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition

Amazon.com
JavaScript is great, but at best it is a complementary language for Web development. JavaScript for the World Wide Web offers a productive, how-to style that lets you solve a problem or pick up a trick and then move on with the rest of your work.

Consistent with other members of Peachpit's Visual QuickStart Guide series, this title makes wise use of side-by-side explanations and screen shots, as well as code snippets and their analysis. This approach gives readers the feeling that the authors are sitting by their side and showing them how to code scripts. Most subjects are handled with numbered steps, such as "Validating Zip Codes," and useful tips punctuate the text.

The book introduces the whole concept of JavaScript in a fast-moving but readable chapter and then moves into solving real-world challenges. The authors do a good job of covering JavaScript's capabilities, from eye-catching graphics tricks to data-entry form processing and cookie management. Particularly enjoyable is the way the book spells out many of the differences between Netscape and Microsoft dynamic HTML approaches.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Web scripting is about getting the job done quickly and well. You don￯﾿ﾽt want more technical overhead than necessary. You want ￯﾿ﾽnews you can use￯﾿ﾽ -- presented cleanly and simply, so it￯﾿ﾽs easy to use.

If you need to learn JavaScript, here￯﾿ﾽs a book that reflects the practical spirit of web scripting: JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition.

Updated for the latest browsers, this book takes you through all the fundamentals, from variables and events through DHTML and debugging. You￯﾿ﾽll start with a quick overview and a little history: what JavaScript is (and isn￯﾿ﾽt); what it can (and can￯﾿ﾽt) do; where to place your scripts; how to hide scripts from ancient, stupid browsers; and how to intelligently comment them so you￯﾿ﾽll remember what on Earth you were thinking.

Next, it￯﾿ﾽs on to basic meat-and-potatoes interactivity: alerting, prompting, and redirecting users; confirming their choices; and detecting browsers and plug-ins. You￯﾿ﾽll then move on to what may be the world￯﾿ﾽs No. 1 use for JavaScript: rollovers.

Authors Tom Negrino and Dori Smith show how to create more effective rollovers; insert and manage multiple rollovers on the same page; trigger rollovers from links; change several links from a single rollover; and use functions to streamline your rollover code.

Building on what you￯﾿ﾽve learned, you￯﾿ﾽll learn how to create ￯﾿ﾽcycling￯﾿ﾽ ad banners, image maps, and slide shows. Want to open multiple windows? Change the contents of a window? Update one window from another? Precisely position windows on the screen? It￯﾿ﾽs all here.

The authors cover just about everything you might want to do with forms, from authentication to ￯﾿ﾽselect-and-go￯﾿ﾽ navigation, menu selections to email address validation. There￯﾿ﾽs even a chapter on regular expressions, which let you manipulate whatever text users throw at you.

Want to add dynamic features to your page? Here￯﾿ﾽs how, starting with simple stuff (displaying the current date) and moving on to slicker techniques (working with referrer pages, writing text into documents ￯﾿ﾽon the fly.￯﾿ﾽ) There￯﾿ﾽs a full chapter on JavaScript event handling and another on placing, reading, and using cookies.

You￯﾿ﾽll learn the basics of driving CSS and DHTML with JavaScript -- including detailed coverage of differences between IE Mac and Windows, Netscape 4.x and 6. Since Negrino and Smith are active members of the Web Standards Project Steering Committee, they￯﾿ﾽre well placed to advise on those maddening cross-platform/browser issues.

Next, they introduce several advanced user interface techniques (pull-down and sliding menus, tool tips, and click-anywhere form fields); then show how to minimize the amount of code you have to write and manage. Neat feature: a full chapter on ￯﾿ﾽbookmarklets,￯﾿ﾽ those surprisingly useful one-line scripts that nestle in your URL line and control your browser without even using web pages.

Increasingly, folks write JavaScript within their web designware. This edition adds a full chapter on using Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Fireworks, and GoLive as JavaScript editors. There￯﾿ﾽs practical debugging coverage, plus concise references to JavaScript, its objects, and the basics of CSS.

Clear writing, lean code, easy access, task-based focus: can￯﾿ﾽt beat it. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

ANNOTATION

Special revised and expanded edition of this text on JavaScript for the Internet, offering a visually-oriented tutorial in JavaScript, what it can do, and how to use it. Highlights important code samples in bold color, and provides convenient thumbtabs for easy referencing. Also provides a companion Web site with additional free materials.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Web doesn't stand still--not even for a minute--and neither do the languages that Web pages are based on. That's why you need this eagerly anticipated update to the popular JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide. Through a combination of task-based instruction and strong visuals, best-selling authors and Web gurus Tom Negrino and Dori Smith take you step by step through all of today's JavaScript essentials: creating navigation bars and other user interface elements, producing dynamic images and smart forms, controlling and detecting browsers, creating and manipulating windows, validating user entries in Web forms, and more. Whether you're a beginning scripter who wants a thorough introduction to the topic or a more advanced scripter who needs a convenient reference, you'll find what you need here--in straightforward language peppered with tips and techniques drawn from the authors' years of experience. By the end of the volume, you'll be able to smoothly integrate HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to bring your Web sites to life.

SYNOPSIS

This fully revised second edition is aimed at the large group of less technical Web authors who know HTML but know nothing about programming. As a simple programming language designed to be used with HTML, JavaScript is the next step in making Web pages more powerful. With JavaScript, even Web page creators without a programming bone in their body can call up pre-cooked Java animations, add clocks and other time-based features to their Web pages, enable their pages to ask questions and gather information from visitors, and provide other interactive features. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

JavaScript's popularity shows no signs of waning, so libraries could benefit from up-to-date titles. A clear and cohesive guide recommended for beginners and all libraries, Visual QuickStart updates older editions with coverage of v.1.5, showing how to complete common tasks step by step, with typical and plentiful tips, screen shots, and tables. A companion web site (www.javascriptworld.com) at the time of this review included only scripts from the fourth edition but should soon be updated to include current cut-and-paste scripts and files. Appendixes address JavaScript "genealogy and reference," reserved words, CSS, and additional resources. Everything, also appropriate for beginners and all libraries, covers similar ground but with more background and fewer figures. Notes, cautions, sidebars, tables, and figures break up the text; appendixes provide quick references for HTML tags and JavaScript statements, classes, and objects. For intermediate to advanced users, Cookbook jumps right into coding examples. Each "recipe" contains a problem, solution, discussion, and useful See Also references; the book's coverage of common "how-to" questions ranges from concatenating strings to embedding XML data in web pages. Cookbook's discussion of both JavaScript and DHTML and clear explanations of common coding issues make it a fantastic reference for larger libraries. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Booknews

Discusses integration of the JavaScript programming language to add interactivity to web pages with scripts for such tasks as navigation, form validation, cookie management, frame creation, and event handling. The fourth edition expands explanations of HTML in the sidebars. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

Tom Negrino writes books and is a contributing editor for Macworld magazine. He's been working with the Macintosh since the innocent, halcyon days of 1984. Shortly thereafter, he began his writing career with MacGuide magazine , joining the Macworld ranks in 1987. His work has also appeared in Digital Video magazine, where he was a contributing editor and monthly columnist.

Tom is a frequent speaker at Macworld Expo, Thunder Lizard's conferences, and other computer trade shows, and is a freelance computer consultant. He has served on the board of the Los Angeles Macintosh Group since 1985, recently ending his tenure as the group's president.

Dori Smith has been programming for over 20 years. As a partner in Chalcedony Consulting, she does programming, training, writing, and Web design. You can find out more about her at her personal site. Dori is also a contributing editor for NetProfessional magazine, is on their advisory board, and is a member of the Web Standards Project Steering Committee.

ACCREDITATION