Advanced JavaScript: Insights and Innovative Techniques

About

Features

• 100+ real-world, task-oriented solutions fully explained—Dissects the code created by top JavaScript developers, revealing the tricks of the masters.

  • Provides students with an arsenal of powerful solutions to the most difficult Web development challenges—ranging from forms to DHTML, browser detection to XML processing, from pattern matching to WMLScript wireless programming, from calendars to embedded audio, and more.

• HTML manipulation.

  • Shows students how to preload and manipulate lists, develop complex mouseovers (e.g., image replacement, rollover functions, preloading, submenus), and to enhance forms and alter and communicate among frames.

• A full chapter on hierarchical menus.

  • Provides in-depth coverage of arrays, main functions, and behaviors.

• Advanced techniques for examining and implementing DHTML, CSS, and managing DOM.

  • Shows students the how-to's of managing users and browsers, using regular expressions, security, and XML.

• A thorough, up-to-date JavaScript reference—At the end of the text.

  • Provides a convenient single-source reference that enables students to work back and forth among advanced techniques and JavaScript basics.



Description

• Copyright 2003
• Edition: 1st

• Book
• ISBN-10: 0-13-047891-1
• ISBN-13: 978-0-13-047891-7

The definitive source for professional JavaScript code.

• 100+ task-oriented solutions—fully explained
• Move beyond the basics—master forms, validation, and cookies
• Manage hierarchical menus, regular expressions, XML, and Macromedia Flash integration
• Master security, stylesheets, browsers, DHTML, and DOM programming
• Real code for real clients... no "stupid JavaScript tricks"!

100+ real-world solutions fully explained.

Advanced JavaScript, Insights and Innovative Techniques provides an arsenal of powerful solutions to your most difficult Web development challenges. Dan Livingston dissects the code created by top JavaScript developers, revealing the tricks of the masters. From hierarchical menus to XML and Macromedia Flash integration, experience the cutting edge of JavaScript and discover the emerging techniques you need to solve real problems.

Advanced JavaScript, Insights and Innovative Techniques covers:

• Hierarchical menus: arrays, main functions, and behaviors
• FolderTree: complex hierarchical tree views of folders and documents
• Using regular expressions to extract data and replace text
• Using JavaScript to import and read XML
• Calling JavaScript from Flash movies
• Stylesheets, DHTML, and the Document Object Model (DOM)
• Mouseovers: image replacement, rollover functions, preloading, submenus, and more
• Dropdown menus, including navigation and altering menu content
• Form elements: text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, and text areas
• Validating user data, credit card numbers, and other form input
• Dynamic table configurations: from basic report making to advanced techniques
• News scrollers, layer sliders, and other advanced applications
• Cookies, list manipulation, communicating among frames, swapping image maps, and much more



Sample Content

Table of Contents

Preface.


1. Mouseovers.

How Rollovers Work. Shelley Biotech. Preloading Images. Mouseovers and Submenus. Mouseovers and Stylesheets. Recap.

2. Dynamically Changing Table Configurations.

Basic Report Making. Advanced Table Configuration.

3. Swapping Out Image Maps.

The Scenario. Multiple Image Maps in HTML. Image Map Information in JavaScript.

4. Altering Lists.

Adding to Lists. Switching Between Unordered and Ordered Lists. Inserting Line Items into Specific Positions.

5. Dropdown Menus.

Navigation. Altering Menu Content. The Whole Code.

6. Text Fields, Checkboxes, Radio Buttons, and Textareas.

Copying Text Fields with Checkboxes.

7. Validating Forms.

Providing Information. Validating User Data. Validating Credit Card Numbers.

8. Stylesheets.

Stylesheet Overview. Classes. Positioning Layers. Modifying HTML Tags. Linking to an External Stylesheet.

9. There's Something About DOM.

The Beginnings of DOM. About Document Objects. The Flavors of DOM. The W3C DOM.

10. Event Objects.

Event History. Event Propagation. Referring to the Event Object.

11. Palette Man.

Palette Man Components. Adding Functionality. Rotating the Colors.

12. Hierarchical Menus: Introduction.

What HierMenus Does. The Arrays.

13. Heirarchical Menus: DOM and Main Functions.

HM_ScriptDOM. The Main Functions.

14. Hierarchical Menus: Behavior.

Menu Behavior.

15. Dragging Layers.

Background. Events and Objects. Dragging Code. The Whole Thing.

16. Cookies.

What Cookies Are. Cookie Parameters. Saving Cookies. Retrieving Cookies. Bill's Cookie Code.

17. Regular Expressions.

Introduction to Regular Expressions. Creating Regular Expressions. Regular Expression Object Properties. Running Regular Expressions. Testing, Reading, and Replacing Text with Regular Expressions.

18. XML.

Importing and Reading XML. Recap.

19. Javascript and ActionScript.

What is ActionScript. Calling JavaScript Using getURL. FSCommand.

20. FolderTree: Creating the Tree.

What FolderTree Does. Creating Folders and Links. Creating Subfolders. Adding Documents/Links.

21. FolderTree: Displaying the Tree.

Displaying the Tree. Drawing the Layers.

22. FolderTree: Finishing It Up.

Drawing the Tree. Opening and Closing Folders.

23. News Scroller.

The News Scroller.

24. Layer Slider.

Sliding Around.

Appendix A. XML Primer.

What is XML. Why XML Is Good. Goals of XML. Elements and Nodes. Structure and Syntax. The Special Symbols and Comment. Recap.

Appendix B. FolderTree Code.

ftexample.html. folderTreeLeftFrame.html. startPage.html. defineMyTree.js. fteins4.js. ua.js.

Index.

Preface

Preface

My God, JavaScript in still around. Well, actually JScript, Microsoft's and Internet Explorer's version of JavaScript, is still around. JavaScript, via its attachment to Netscape, is evaporating from the face of the earth. In any case, I always thought JavaScript/JScript would be replaced by something more robust and harder to learn. But it's stuck around: It's grown from dealing with just HTML to manipulating stylesheets to starting to deal with XML objects. It's nice to see this progression in sophistication-I feel like my kid's starting college.

What This Book Is

This book is not for beginners. This book is not a reference guide-you probably already own several of those horse-choking volumes. This book is an attempt to bring together the most useful, most interesting, and latest developments in the JavaScript language in one volume. I hope this book is a tutorial, a cookbook, and an inspiration. We'll look at some of the latest, greatest things you can do with JavaScript, as well as closely examine scripts by some of the JavaScript masters who have unleashed free, wildly popular, and definitely complex scripts.

The goal of this book is to take your JavaScript skills to the next level. We'll look at interesting functions, innovative programming techniques, and what those insane clients really want from us. After absorbing the material in this book, your life will hopefully be easier, you'll be able to build cooler stuff, and you'll make more money doing it.

So let's get started!



Updates

Submit Errata

