DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model [Paperback]

I started writing websites at the end of the nineties and I used to use a lot of JavaScript. However, it was all very hacky, partly because I didn't know how to do it otherwise and partly because making it any neater seemed like a whole lot of effort.

Over the last year or so, I've got back into web design and like a lot of people have been seduced by the clarity of using CSS for design. However, the more I got into style sheets, the more I was repulsed by the thought of sullying my sites with JavaScript as I knew it, and had pretty much begun to pride myself on my now complete avoidance of it.

Then I started to hear more and more about the combination of not only (X)HTML and CSS but also JavaScript, in ways that were thoroughly "web standards" and "accessibility" compliant. So, I got Jeremy's book from Amazon and have devoured it in less than a week.

This book makes DOM Scripting (JavaScript) seem so easy and so part of web standards that I now feel silly for thinking otherwise. If you feel like you now have a feeling for the basics of why/how to use CSS to make sites, then there is absolutely no reason that you shouldn't also understand all of the ideas here. If anything, the ideas interlocked so well with how I (and I think, lots of people) have come to think about web site structure, that they have helped me have a clearer picture of XHTML and CSS.

The book develops several standalone enhancements to the functionality of websites throughout its chapters and these are combined beautifully to give a great demo site near the end. This site, in the spirit of unobtrusive scripting, championed throughout the book, works perfectly with JavaScript disabled, but is clearly, simply, and yet massively enhanced if JavaScript is enabled.

A lovely book which I find it hard to imagine having been written any better than it was.

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Being efficient in XHTML and CSS i wanted to add something to these skills. This book did that. The DOM is something that i knew little about, after reading this book i now have a firm grasp of what can be done. Its not only how to use it, its the why and when that the author describes so fantastically well.

When everyone thinks about Javascript they think usability and accessibility problems straight away. This book addresses these issues extremely well and shows you how to implement clever scripts.
Everything is explained in detail without being patronising. The examples build and build to the final exercise where you put your new found knowledge to use. I couldn't wait to put the book down and go straight to my PC and use these techniques.

Probably the best book i have read and recommend the author to write many more.

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The code examples are clearly explained, but I did feel it helped to have some background with CSS and PHP as the book dives right into function calls, object properties and the like - and yet does a good job of making these accessible.

If there's a weakness, I'd say it occasionally takes too long to make its point, e.g. going step by step through very similar code examples at times. From a reader's point of view, Jeremy's coding style seems quite perfectionist, showing successively better or neater ways to write a given piece of code - that's no bad thing though, and the rationale is always explained clearly.

This is a book that deserves a wider audience - the potential power of DOM scripting is awesome, and this will help people comfortable with basic scripting to make the leap to building more sophisticated, impressive and robust web applications.

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