By Jeremy Keith
Review by: Alex
When I first got into JavaScript the amount of client side scripting which could be achieved was amazing and over the years as more of the powerful scripting language has been enhanced, unfortunately so has the amount of malicious code which is being used, because of this a few people disabled JavaScript completely from their browsers rendering some pages and functions useless and in worse case scenario's totally destroyed website designs who relied on it far too much. Enter unobtrusive JavaScript and the DOM, this kind of scripting is what can be best described as "Browser friendly code" and though the DOM is more limited then full fledged JavaScript, you can guarantee that it will work for everyone and will not reduce your visitor’s browsers to tears. One of the great things about unobtrusive JavaScript is that it is much easier to make it backward compatible for all browsers. Enter DOM Scripting, a book which rather then working with everything to-do with JavaScript, focuses primarily on the DOM and unobtrusive JavaScript which is "browser friendly", this book is something which all web developers who want to remain standards compliant and maximize the usability of their websites should have a copy of, the book uses chapter based "how to" guides which explain how the DOM can improve your website, how you can separate behaviour from content and design and how AJAX has drastically altered the face of the modern internet. Though this isn’t a book on AJAX for those who wish to make their websites more interactive and want to do it without loosing accessibility or usability in their design, this book explains how to master the document object model (DOM) and how to accomplish all of the enhancements which it can offer your website designs.
The chapters covered in this book are as follows... Chapter 1 gives a brief history of JavaScript (for those who are interested), Chapter 2 describes the syntax of the JavaScript language and how it is used on the internet, Chapter 3 explains the document object model (DOM) and how it applies to bringing JavaScript, the browser and the website content closer together, Chapter 4 gives the basics of making a JavaScript based image gallery, Chapter 5 mentions the best practices which should be applied when using JavaScript code in website design and development, Chapter 6 carries on from where the image gallery left off and reviews the best practices section to make the gallery unobtrusive, Chapter 7 details writing mark-up on the fly and generating content as the site requests it, Chapter 8 explains the use of abbreviations and access keys and how you can enhance your content so that it is more accessible, Chapter 9 gives details of the three sheets of the web (Structure, behaviour and presentation) and how these can integrate and work together, especially in this case of CSS and the DOM, Chapter 10 provides information on the subject of animation and adding a slideshow function using unobtrusive JavaScript to your website, Chapter 11 explains how all of the previous chapters information can be put together to provide an unobtrusive website which is accessible, usable and is browser friendly and finally in Chapter 12 for those interested in "future proofing" their sites you can read about new technologies which are taking off such as AJAX and how they work and interact with your website.
This book is suitable for the following types of people interested in website development:
- People with a working knowledge of HTML and CSS who want to include JavaScript in their sites.
- JavaScript developers who want to learn to make their code unobtrusive and accessible.
- Website developers who wish to add dynamic functionality to their website designs.