Customer Reviews

The DHTML Companion

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert Mudry's book should be renamed "The DHTML Companion for IE". He does an excellent job of describing DHTML for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but nearly excludes Netscape Navigator completely. That is fine if you are publishing web sites design strictly for IE, however in the real web designers have to accommodate as many browsers as possible. The scope of Mudry's book is too narrowly focused to be useful. Perhaps if he defined what was compatible with the different browsers certain portions of the book would be of use. Finding out that Mudry's scripts don't work in Netscape through errors and crashed browsers is not acceptable. O'Reilly's "Dynamic HTML, the Definitive Reference" is the way to go.

Without explicitly saying so, on the cover or in the main part of the text, this book is a one-sided look at DHTML. The cover says that the book covers the Netscape and Microsoft implemetations of DHTML, but this is misleading. Less than 10% of the book is devoted to the Netscape implementation. Readers of this book should be aware that most of the DHTML examples will not work unless one is using Internet Explorer. Had I known this I would not have been as interested in purchasing the book. I would have looked to spend my money on a book that had a good chunk of examples which would work in both Netscape and Explorer. If you are a Web designer, you don't want to alienate visitors to your site by providing interactivity that only works with one of the two major browsers, do you? In my opinion, the book is well written, but I can only guess whether the code examples will work since 1.) I do not use Internet Explorer, although I probably will at some future date, and 2) there were a number of mis-spellings of words in the text, typographic errors, which eroded my confidence about how well the book had been produced. Are there typos in the code examples too? Don't know. With these caveats, I would recommend the book to people seeking to get a handle on the powerful features of DHTML. I gave the book a rating of 6 in order to emphasize how misled I felt when I realized how little this book will help me design web pages for visitors using Netscape. Perhaps in a 2nd edition this capable author will give more space to Netscape. (My apologies for not putting copyright symbols wherever the words Netscape and Microsoft appear in this text. Just imagine they're there so I don't get in trouble, ok?)

I just got this bok for the Libary, and on looking through I was amazed. Its undoubtedly the best DHTML book I have ver seen. Simply written, assumes very little and quite thorough! Only problem is that much of it is now outdated (The specification has since evolved). So please Mr Mudry hurry up with new edition.
If there was a 6 or 7 star rating I would still awárd it. I wish all books were written this way.

- Olumide

This book is excellent for studying IE based DHTML features although Netscape is barely covered, ignoring the title of this book. It thoroughly deals with essential concepts of Internet Explorer 4.0 based DHTML with step-by-step codes. However, it does not deal with its application. I mean, it was finished on the line of introduction of DHTML features. And it also does not give well-arranged tables which would contain the summary of each chapers for later quick reference. I felt that this book is very pleasant to read, and he *knows* how to explain hard concepts with easy to get words with humor. Great book for learning DHTML with IE.

This book is excellent for studying IE based DHTML features although Netscape is barely covered, ignoring the title of this book. It thoroughly deals with essential concepts of Internet Explorer 4.0 based DHTML with step-by-step codes. However, it does not deal with its application. I mean, it was finished on the line of introduction of DHTML features. And it also does not give well-arranged tables which would contain the summary of each chapers for later quick reference. I felt that this book is very pleasant to read, and he *knows* how to explain hard concepts with easy to get words with humor. Great book for learning DHTML with IE.

A reasonably well rounded book. It doesn't cover data binding (only a passing reference section) which is a little disappointing. It was obviously written with a Preview Release of IE4, but surprisingly this doesn't detract from it very much at all. One of the best things about this book is it is simply quite readable, some of these books are so dry you have to drag yourself through. It already assumes you are a competent HTML coder and reasonable Javascripter, and in keeping with a target audience like that doesn't insult you with the rubbish "what is the Internet?" sections so many publishers insist in including in every book. Virtually everything is backed up by an example, and despite this it manages to go at a reasonable pace. The Netscape 4 coverage isn't as comprehensive as I'd like it to be, but is ok. All in all, not too bad - I've read better books, but I've read a lot, lot worse (such a DHTML Unleashed).