HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook

by Gorgi Kosev, Mite Mitreski

Take the fast track to the rapidly growing world of HTML5 data and services with this brilliantly practical cookbook. Whether building websites or web applications, this is the handbook you need to master HTML5. Overview In Detail HTML5 is everywhere. From PCs to tablets to smartphones and even TVs, the web is the most ubiquitous application platform and information medium bar. Its becoming a first class citizen in established operating systems such as Microsoft Windows 8 as well as the primary platform of new operating systems such as Google Chrome OS. "HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook" contains over 100 recipes explaining how to utilize modern features and techniques when building websites or web applications. This book will help you to explore the full power of HTML5 - from number rounding to advanced graphics to real-time data binding. "HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook" starts with the display of text and related data. Then you will be guided through graphs and animated visualizations followed by input and input controls. Data serialization, validation and communication with the server as well as modern frameworks with advanced features like automatic data binding and server communication will also be covered in detail.This book covers a fast track into new libraries and features that are part of HTML5! What you will learn from this book Approach A practical approach with hands on recipes to learn more about HTML5 Data and Services, its features and techniques when building websites or web applications. Who this book is written for This book is for programmers and developers who work with a lot of backend code and want to get fast tracked into the world of HTML5 and Javascript. It is also for JavaScript developers who would like to update their knowledge with new techniques and capabilities made possible with HTML5.Some experience in HTML and jQuery is assumed.

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Ivan Idris · Rating 4 out of 5]

HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook contains a variety of cutting edge HTML 5 recipes. The examples are so cutting edge in fact that some of the HTML 5 features might not be supported by more than a handful of browsers right now and a couple of the API’s featured are not completely production ready. The book is very readable, which is good since it has more than 400 pages. The first 3 chapters seemed perfect to me, but after that I started noticing minor spelling and grammatical errors. Which is not a big deal for a programming book. Still I can’t give top marks.

So if you learn by doing and are a serious front end developer, I think that this is a good book for you. Just be aware that you can’t use all the features yet. I would give “HTML5 Data and Services Cookbook” 3 or 4 stars out of 5 depending on how bothered you are by typos.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Packt Publishing in order to review it. Also I am more of a back-end developer.

[Andreas Teufel · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is not a reference about html5 data, it is merely a collection of useful javascript plugins for data handling and would not even necessarily need the "5" after "html" - but people are calling everything html5 nowadays, so whatever. beginners in web development should read at least one book about javascript design patterns and get fit with vanilla javascript first, because a lot of code in the book is made with jquery and while the code is understandable there is a lot of room for optimization (with jquery object caching, for example). but the author is using immediate functions, that´s cool :)

all the tutorials start with a part called "getting ready", where you basically get to know what plugin the author used and where to download it. the second part is called "how to do it..." where all the code is shown, the third part ("how it works...") explains the code. sometimes there is also a "there is more..." part with some additional information.
i am not sure if that kind of separation is a good idea, it felt a bit weird but maybe because it was different to other books i read. the "getting ready" part in chapter 2 is pretty much the same for almost every "recipe" there, because the "flot" library is used for them. a lot of redundant text there is.

finally, i have to say that the book should not be used for "best practice" code, it´s merely an overview of what´s possible with javascript plugins nowadays, with a very strong focus on jquery. a collection of links that you can also just find with a simple google search. but it´s a very large one, so for me it was nice to skim through the book to see what´s possible with plugins. it really covers a LOT of different ways to deal with data.

[Luigi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished to read this book and I really liked it! I missed many of latest updates about HTML5 and this book helped me to update my knowledge and to improve my skills. I liked especially chapters 4,5 and 6; chapter 4 is about the new input types available in HTML5 that allow the developers to use advanced input that uses geolocation, time, drag&drop and so on. Chapter 5 is about Custom input components and explains how to create custom controlos such as menus, rich-text input, dialog and so on. Chapter 6 is about Data validation in HTML5 that is often a little problematic for me. In sum, I say that this book is very helpful for people who needs to update their knowledge about this new subset of HTML5.