We know from the success of titles such as Web Standards Solutions, Cascading Style Separating Content from Presentation, and The Web Designer's Reference that web designers are increasingly concerned with making sites that don't just look pretty, but are also built using current best practices.
There are three main technologies married together to create usable, standards-compliant web XHTML for data structure, Cascading Style Sheets for styling your data, and JavaScript for adding dynamic effects and manipulating structure on the fly using the Document Object Model.
This book is about the latter of the three. DOM Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model gives you everything you need to start using JavaScript and the Document Object Model to enhance your web pages with client-side dynamic effects. Jeremy Keith starts off by giving you a basic crash course in JavaScript and the DOM, then moves on to provide you with several real-world examples built up from scratch, including dynamic image galleries and dynamic menus. Then, he shows you how to manipulate web page style using the CSS DOM, and create markup on the fly.
A great introduction to the concepts behind DOM scripting, the basics of progressive enhancement and a lot of good use cases and examples, in a great conversational tone.
Weird to read a book on javascript that makes no mention of jquery and other libraries. I guess they're coming out with a second edition in december that will include these.
This book introduces JQuery and Ajax by demonstrating their application through basic DOM functions. It explains how various libraries functions can be achieved using pure DOM scripts, making them easier to use and abstracting the underlying principles in DOM scripts.
JavaScript is like a scalpel—in the wrong hands, it can lead to disaster; in the hands of a skilled surgeon, it is a powerful tool. In Jeremy Keith's DOM Scripting, the guiding principle throughout is to turn you into that surgeon. The book opens by putting JavaScript into historical perspective, then follows that with the basics of the JavaScript language and the Document Object Model (DOM). From those basics, Keith layers and weaves best practices such as standards support, progressive enhancement, graceful degradation, and accessibility, all while slowly building components that reach a final crescendo in a complete website example. (Here's a hint: if your web pages have any in-line JavaScript code or handlers such as , you're doing things wrong.) If you're looking for in-depth Ajax material here, look elsewhere. This book is all about doing JavaScript correctly—so you won't cut yourself later.
I liked the way this book taught javascript. As a web designer you are always a little scared of technologies that some one might not have on their computer. And after you spend days designing something you want to make sure everyone can see it. One of this books main themes is to use Javascript in a way that it enriches your web site not make it harder (or impossible) to use.
Great book that focuses on manipulating DOM properties, nodes and methods. Most JavaScript books just gloss over this. Granted, modern JS Libraries abstract the need to know how to do this, but I like to know what's going on under the hood, perhaps to make more efficient decisions. Well written, easy to follow tutorials. Just a wee bit dated.
Another great Friends of Ed book. So far I think I should have gotten the advanced book but it is a great review to really help me get a solid understanding of the dom. I have little background in the terminology so now I can talk to other web developers. http://www.friendsofed.com/
Good book on using JavaScript to progressively enhance web pages. Somewhat dated (especially the last three chapters) but for the most part it has aged well.