DHTML and JavaScript - Softcover

Gilorien

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130863343 ISBN 13: 9780130863348

Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr, 1999

Synopsis

A guide to developing web sites that can use the new features and capabilities for using style sheets and layers in both cascading style sheet syntax and JavaScript syntax that are reflected in the Navigator 4.0 browser. It also introduces the new features of JavaScript 1.2 and 1.3. The CD-ROM contains source code for the 400 examples in the book. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

About the Author

GILORIEN is a freelance artist in both the 2D and 3D realm, a 3D animator, musician, and advanced Web site designer and consultant. His company, DreamPlay Studios, provides content and consulting for a wide variety of projects, and is currently working on a full-length 3D digital animated film.

From the Back Cover

Make the most of Netscape JavaScript 1.2/1.3 and DHTML!

Master the awesome Web power of DHTML, style sheets, and Netscape JavaScript 1.2/1.3! DHTML and JavaScript delivers all you need. It's a complete task-oriented tutorial, a detailed reference to JavaScript syntax, and a library of 400+ working examples that shows exactly how to build innovative Web sites with Netscape's hottest technologies. Coverage includes:

• Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript Style Sheets, Layers, and extensive coverage on how to control them all with JavaScript.
• JavaScript object theory, statements, operators, functions, methods, expressions, variables, and properties.
• Demystifies the Document Object Model DOM.
• The new JavaScript Layer Object: key concepts and real-world sample code.
• In-depth Event Object coverage and implementation.
• Pattern matching with the new RegExp Object.
• Arrays, window, document, screen, navigator, Math, Date, and String Objects.
• Learn how to design your own online games with image-dragging or keyboard control.
• JavaScript 1.3's new JavaScript console and other enhancements.

Hands-on and comprehensive, DHTML and JavaScript lets you break through Web clutter -- and create the great-looking, top-performing sites you've always wanted to build!

CD-ROM Included.

The accompanying CD-ROM contains all of the working examples from the book and two hyper-linked versions of the book, which include a more extensive HTML Elements Primer, in both HTML and PDF formats, with 100+ bonus code examples! It even has an eleven-minute song from the author's first album.

From the Inside Flap

Preface

This book is designed to guide the reader in developing web sites that can use the new features and capabilities for using Style Sheets and Layers in both Cascading Style Sheet Syntax and JavaScript Syntax that are reflected in Netscape's Navigator 4.0+ browser. Additionally, it covers all of the new abilities of JavaScript 1.2 and including the Layer Object and advanced Event Handling for capturing Events and using them to dynamically alter the appearance and content of documents. There is also a chapter devoted to the new functionality of JavaScript 1.3 and changes from version 1.2.

If you are a complete beginner, then check out Appendix A in Part IV which will introduce you to all of the basics for using HTML Elements to design your web pages including Images, Area Maps, Tables, Frames, Forms, and Embedded Objects for advanced content like VRML, QTVR, QD3D, and Audio files. Appendix A contains a truncated

version of the HTML Elements Primer but there is a much more complete version on the CD-ROM, in both HTML and PDF formats. Both of these online versions have about 100 additional examples that are linked to the documentation from separate files. If you are already deep into web site design, then Appendix A can serve as a reference when you need a quick memory fix.

Part I covers Styles and Layers. It starts with an introduction to using Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) Syntax and the Properties that are used to define Styles for your Elements. Chapter 2 demonstrates how to position Layers, which are Blocks of Content and introduces additional Properties associated with Layers. Chapter 3 moves on to Style Sheets created with JavaScript Syntax, focusing on using JavaScript to manipulate Layers in real-world examples.

The Layer Object in JavaScript is new and has many Properties and Methods that facilitate the manipulation of Layers both programmatically and dynamically from user input. Many of the Methods and Properties of other JavaScript Objects which can enhance this process are covered in both theory and in Sample Listings which are both in the book and in separate files on the CD-ROM for you to run. Generally speaking, you can digest a concept faster if you run the examples in a browser.

Part II covers all the vast array of new features of JavaScript 1.2 and changes to previous Object functionality. There are new Statements to consider and many Objects that required Constructor Functions can now be created with Literal Notation. String Objects, Array Objects and Event Objects have been massively enhanced with a plethora of new Properties and Methods. There is a new RegExp Object which uses Regular Expressions to perform pattern matches in text searches that opens up a whole new range of possibilities.

Additionally, Part II covers many of the essential tools for using JavaScript such as basic and advanced Object Theory, Statements and Operators, Functions, Methods, Expressions, Variables and Properties.

Part III covers the new features and minor changes to JavaScript 1.3. Version 1.2 is a major upgrade but version 1.3 is not. However, one really useful feature of 1.3 is the JavaScript Console that you can use to debug your code from Navigator/Communicator.

Most of the examples in this book will require that you use the Navigator 4.0

version of the browser and make sure that you have JavaScript enabled in the Preferences dialogue box. This book follows the standard conventions of using a fixed-width font (Courier or Geneva) for displaying HTML and JavaScript code except when it occurs in the context of a normal paragraph. In that circumstance, the code is displayed with a bold font. Usually HTML code is displayed in allcaps and JavaScript is either all lowercase or interCap.

Appendix E in Part IV consists of a group of charts that contain a lot of condensed information that can serve as Syntax references. These charts are all in a file named:

Charts.pdf

on the CD-ROM. It is suggested that you print out the whole file for use while you are learning the book and even more importantly for when you are writing your own code.

In summary, this book thoroughly covers CSS Style Sheets and JavaScript Style Sheets in theory and by example, along with all of the new features of JavaScript versions 1.2 and 1.3. It also serves as a Syntax Reference for these topics. Most importantly, after learning the theory, this book demonstrates how to effectively integrate JavaScript with DHTML to create innovative and advanced web sites. Finally, this book is heavily focused on examples as a learning mechanism; there are over 400 working examples in the book and even more on the CD-ROM.

Have FUN!!

Gilorien

About the Author

Gilorien is a freelance artist in both the 2D and 3D realms, a 3D animator, musician and advanced website designer and consultant. His company, DreamPlay Studios, provides content and consulting for a variety of projects and is currently working on a full-length animation film that is being created exclusively in the 3D digital realm. Still images of his art, along with excerpts of music from his 2 CDs, can be seen/heard and purchased at:

erols/gilorien

Contact him at:

gilorien@erols

About the CD-ROM

All of the more than 400 examples in the book have an associated BBEdit HTML Sample file on the CD-ROM in the folder named DHTML-JS_BOOK-Main_Files. Each of these files starts with the word "Sample" and are intended to be run on the Netscape Navigator/Communicator browser. You can also check out the source code for copying/pasting or alteration in any text editor. If you work on a Macintosh, you might want to get the BBEdit text editor from Bare Bones Software, which is specifically designed to work with HTML and other types of coding.

See the last two pages of the book, after the Index, for more information about the contents of the CD-ROM.

Reviews

Gilorien is a digital artist so this is not your normal computer manual. While the tech stuff is all correct, the book's perspective is definitely "artistic," meaning cool comes before usability and often readability. This is not a book for novices; readers should have already mastered cascading style. A must for patrons interested in creating very strange, dynamic, animated images that download quckly without plugs-in. For larger collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0130863343
• ISBN 13: 9780130863348
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1142