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. You can 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. You can learn to create pop-up navigation bars, enhance HTML tables, build an interactive photo gallery, and make web forms more usable. You can 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, and how to find and fix bugs. Communicating with the Web Server covers Ajax, the approach that made JavaScript glamorous. You can 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 with getting tangled up in code, "JavaScript: The Missing Manual" is the best book available.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19398 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 543 pages

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.

Customer Reviews

As easy as it gets.
Like the other Missing Manuals this book is clear and straightforward. It assumes a reasonable understanding of (x)html and CSS but the chapters are clearly laid out with hands on tutorials covering the theory. Best of all, the book uses jQuery from an early stage. jQuery seems to be THE javascript library at the moment.

Good introduction to basic javascript and jquery.
I found this book a very useful introduction to using javascript and in particular the popular javascript library jquery in your web site. If you are looking for a detailed description of javascript this book probably isn't for you. However if you are looking for a book that explains the basics and how you can learn quickly to employ javascript tecniques (using the jquery library) to enhance your web sites then this is a good book to read. It is useful to have read CSS The Missing Manual first.

Easy to Understand
Easy to read and understand. Simply written. Although I'm not a complete beginner to Javascript, I did find this book the best out of the ones I have bought.