Designing with JavaScript : Creating Dynamic Web Pages

JavaScript is one of the core technologies of the Web. Using JavaScript, you can create dynamic, interactive web pages that include image rollovers, pop-up windows, auto-scrolling frames, intelligent forms, and sophisticated Dynamic HTML effects. Even better, you don't have to be a programming ace to learn enough JavaScript to incorporate these elements into your web pages. Designing with JavaScript shows you how to create the effects you want, without forcing you to wade through pages of dry programmer-speak about variables, operators, and functions. Each chapter demonstrates common JavaScript techniques and explains how to customize them for your own use. Along the way, it introduces basic JavaScript concepts, teaching the language in the context of real-world examples. By the time you finish this book, you'll have a solid foundation of JavaScript knowledge that you can apply to your own web pages. With Designing with JavaScript, you will learn to:

• Use JavaScript to produce visual effects, such as image rollovers and rotating billboards
• Launch new browser windows, control frames, and validate form data
• Customize your site by using JavaScript to detect browsers, platforms, and plug-ins
• Use cookies to keep track of visitors, so you can welcome new users while offering customized pages to returning users
• Create a tabbed folder interface, drop-down menus, and a scrolling headline ticker, using the basics of Dynamic HTML

The first edition of Designing with JavaScript taught tens of thousands of web designers how to enliven their pages with JavaScript. This new edition has been updated to cover the latest JavaScript techniques supported by current web browsers. If you are ready to start incorporating JavaScript into your designs, this is the book for you.

Nick Heinle is perhaps the Web's best known resource for JavaScript. His JavaScript tips are used by many of the leading Web sites, including sites for "Star Wars," CNN, Digital Equipment, IBM, and Prentice Hall. He will graduate Needham High School in 1998.

Bill Peña is a freelance Web/information designer and writer. He was also the designer for Safari: Tech Books Online, O'Reilly's online books service. He is writing several books for O'Reilly, including the recently released second edition of Designing with JavaScript. In his spare time, Bill likes to pretend he knows Perl because of the people he meets that way.