JavaScript: The Missing Manual

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 543 pages
• Published by: Pogue Press July 21, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596515898
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596515898
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.8 pounds

Product Description
JavaScript is essential for creating modern, interactive websites. But, unlike HTML and CSS, JavaScript is a true programming language with complex rules that are challenging for most web designers to learn. In JavaScript: The Missing Manual, bestselling author David McFarland teaches you how to use JavaScript in sophisticated ways -- even if you have little or no programming experience. In a clear, entertaining way, the book starts out by teaching you how to build a basic JavaScript program. Then, once you've mastered the structure and terminology, you'll learn how to use advanced JavaScript tools to add useful interactivity to your sites quickly and painlessly, rather than scripting everything from scratch. To jump-start your progress, the book offers several "living examples" -- step-by-step tutorials for building website components with JavaScript using raw materials, such as graphics and half-completed Web pages, that you can download from the book's companion website. In this book: Getting Started introduces the building blocks of JavaScript, and general tips on computer programming. Learn to add scripts to a web page; store and manipulate information; communicate with the browser window; respond to events like mouse clicks and form submissions; and identify and modify HTML. Building Web Page Features provides real-world examples of JavaScript in action. Learn to create pop-up navigation bars, enhance HTML tables, build an interactive photo gallery, and make web forms more usable. Create interesting user interfaces with tabbed panels, accordion panels and pop-up dialog boxes. Troubleshooting and Debugging shows you how to avoid the ten most common errors new programmers make, andhow to find and fix bugs. Communicating with the Web Server covers Ajax, the approach that made JavaScript glamorous. Learn to use JavaScript to communicate with a server so that your web pages can receive information without having to reload. If you want to put JavaScript to work right away without getting tangled up in code, JavaScript: The Missing Manual is the best book available.

About The Author
David Sawyer McFarland is the president of Sawyer McFarland Media Inc., a web development and training company located in Portland, Oregon. In addition, he teaches JavaScript programming, Flash, and web design at the University of California, Berkeley, the Center for Electronic Art, the Academy of Art College, and Ex'Pression College for Digital Arts. He was formerly the webmaster at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center. David is also the author of CSS: The Missing Manual and Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual.

Reader Reviews
I'm a self-taught, hobbyist web developer. Therefore, I appreciate lively and, most of all, clear explanations and examples in books that teach HTML, CSS and related technologies. As should be evident from my review's title, books by David McFarland are among the best at teaching someone like me. I've read the author's Missing Manual books on CSS and Dreamweaver CS3 and have enjoyed their clarity, helpful tips and step-by-step approach. Having gotten half-way through the new Missing Manual for Javacript, I'm delighted to say that David McFarland has "kept up the good work." Having singled, doubled and tripled with these three Missing Manuals, I hope he "completes the circuit" with a PHP/MySQL book next. Buy, read it and enjoy one of the best writers in the field. Comment | | (Report this)