JavaScript: The Missing Manual

JavaScript is an essential language for creating modern, interactive websites, but its complex rules challenge even the most experienced web designers. With JavaScript: The Missing Manual, you'll quickly learn how to use JavaScript in sophisticated ways -- without pain or frustration -- even if you have little or no programming experience.

JavaScript expert David McFarland first teaches you the basics by having you build a simple program. Then you'll learn how to work with jQuery, a popular library of pre-built JavaScript components that's free and easy to use. With jQuery, you can quickly build modern, interactive web pages -- without having to script everything from scratch!

• Learn how 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
• Get real-world examples of JavaScript in action
• Learn to build pop-up navigation bars, enhance HTML tables, create an interactive photo gallery, and make web forms more usable
• Create interesting user interfaces with tabbed panels, accordion panels, and pop-up dialog boxes
• Learn to avoid the ten most common errors new programmers make, and how to find and fix bugs
• Use JavaScript with Ajax to communicate with a server so that your web pages can receive information without having to reload

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.