Customer Reviews

DHTML for the World Wide Web (Visual QuickStart Guide)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a very good book for getting started with DHTML. It covers all the basics (CSS, CSS-P, etc.). It is, however, a little dated since HTML 4, CSS2, and the W3C DOM standards are being implemented in the latest browsers. Don't get discouraged though, this will still introduce you to the basics.

I would highly suggest reading PeachPit's VQS Guides on HTML and Javascript first. Then read this VQS. If after your intro to DHTML, you decide to become a Guru- buy O'Reilly's "Dynamic HTML- The Definitive Guide". Also, search the web for some reference sites- there are some really good ones for DHTML. Good Luck

The format of all of the Visual Quickstart Guides is very helpful in that it provides the reader with a visual representation of basically all of the concepts covered in the book. In the case of "DHTML for the WWW" this is extremely helpful since many of the concepts are fairly complex and would be difficult to comprehend without a visual aid.

Overall, this book is a good guide for intermediate level HTML coders who perhaps aren't interested in coding for the rest of their lives, but who would like to take advantage of some of the advanced behaviours that DHTML affords. In addition to the basic concepts behind DHTML, the book provides a surprisingly good and thorough explaination of CSS.

The downsides to this book are twofold, first, the examples provided are not, in large part, directly applicable to any real world applications. After having read the book, it would still take a fair amount of effort and ingenuity to develop a cascading menu, for example. This is made particularly difficult because of the book's second major fault, the fact that many of the code examples provided in the text are incorrect. If you buy this book MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU CONSULT THE ACCOMPANYING WEB SITE BEFORE DOING ANY CODING! This will save you much time and frustration.

The summary: worth buying, but it will leave you with as many questions as answers.

This book is not truely for beginners. I would suggest a good book on JavaScript (for those sketchy in this area), an then a good book on HTML (again for those beginning to learn to Web program). DHTML is a combination of intermediate to advanced HTML and JavaScript. Now with that said, this book does a good job presenting DHTML clearly. Here is a list of some of the topics covered: Cascading Style Sheets (basics, fonts, text control, properties, margins, borders, positioning, ad-nausium...), DOM (Document Object Model), Dynamic Techniques/Solutions, JavaScript and DHTML, Layers (a real biggy for me), and Visual Controls. Both Netscape and the ubiquitous Internet Explorer are covered (with a couple of chapters specific to their uniqueness). Appendices include: CSS Quick Reference, Layers QR, and Resources. The book is rounded out with an excellent index. I especially liked all of the cross-browser information (comments, code techniques, what would work and what wouldn't, how to adapt). I would have liked to have seen more on JavaScript integration with visual controls, but oh well. In addition, more information on CSS techniques with JavaScript would have been nice, and when dealing with IE it would have been terrific to have had some VBScript comparison code. Overall, I would recommend this book for the serious web programmer's shelf.

I've read quite a few books on DHTML and this is one of the few that I come back to over and over for solutions and ideas. The book is roughly half-and-half CSS and javascripted DHTML. Unlike many of the laughable attempts at DHTML books out there, this one focuses on effects that work in BOTH major browsers, with a chapter each on browser-specific effects. Also, unlike other books, heavy focus is placed on complete working examples with full code listings rather than hypotheticals. If you learn best tutorial-style, this book's for you.

This book is not for novices at javascript. If you're new to scripting, start with Danny Goodman's javascript bible first. Likewise, know your HTML first. Most of the negative reviews written below can be ascribed to failure to read the book's notes and caveats before buying. Sure, there are a few typos, but the book's support site maintains errata and downloadable source code. And to the tosser who whines about "browser sniffing"--the list of interesting JS effects that can be created on both browsers without a bit of detection can be enumerated on one hand.

This is a good book for someone that is familiar to HTML and wants to add some DHTML to their web pages. It is not a full reference book for JAVASCRIPT, but gives you the basics needed to get started using DHTML.

The book teaches you about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) from what theyare to how to set up an internal CSS, a linked CSS and an imported CSS.

It goes through CSS Fonts, text control, margins and borders, positioning, and background colors and properties.

One of the things I liked about this book is that for each section it shows samples of the actual code and screen shots of what the code produces in the browser.

It also tells you what code works both in IE and in Netscape and has separate chapters for each browser's specific code.

Finally the book has an excellent index and appendixes outlining code and code properties.

All in all this is a good book for someone starting out in DHTML but not for the expert.

If you're not familiar with HTML then before taking on this book, read the Peachpit book on HTML. Then read this book, get the updates from the web and do all the examples - I used Netscape 4.7 and IE5. You'll be able to do quite a lot of web development after this. If you then want to delve into other areas such as Javascipt etc in more detail then get one of the more technical books around such as "Pure Javascipt".

This is not a beginner book you need to be comfortable with HTML and even JavaScript. This does get you going in DHTML and has a great appendixes and index which outline code and code properties. It tells you what code works in Explorer and Netscape and even goes as far as to put the ones separate which require specific code. The book teaches you about Cascading Style Sheets. This was a great start to DHTML!

Author starts off by showing you a piece of code and not telling you where in the code to put it (it supposed to be for a novice). Then he goes explaining things saying things that sound like "10 pages ahead you will find the piece of code you need now". Also I've tried to run code exactly word by word and it didn't run the way it was supposed to. Then I went on Author's site and downloaded the piece of code I had trouble with. Ran it and "Voila!" same problem, it didn't run it was supposed to. Note I didn't change anything in the code, I just got his own example the .HTML file and it didn't look right. I was really interested in Dynamic Techniques and Solutions, (Chapters 10-11) but thinking about the previous problems with the code, I went ahead and just ran the .html files from Author's site. THEY DIDN'T LOOK THE WAY THE DO IN THE BOOK. Creating pop-up menu had an .HTML file that didn't have menus dissapear up. Once you open the page (Author's version) you don't see just a Tab for pull down menu (as he tells us) you see a tab and 1 or 2 menu items showing, which didn't "leave" the field after menu being pulled up. And then clicking on the tab WILL do what it has to do (pull the complete menu down - WOAH! ), but then the thing would not go up. Again, let me repeat, I didn't use my code, it was taken straight from the Author's archives. Generally, I gave 2 starts just for the labor the Author put into the book, I am sure he didn't mean it to come that messed up.

I like the Visual Quickstart books as basic intros to subjects I'm learning about. This book gave me a general background so that I don't feel lost when I move to one of the bigger books. I do recommend getting another, more detailed book (like the O'Reilly one) to really learn the subject. Also, many of the examples were not explained as clearly as they could have been. Overall, good simply as an intro, nothing more.

As a skilled HTML coder, I found this book to be exactly what I needed to get a grip on CSS in only a couple of hours. The formatting is a bit odd, but I was able to deal with it without a problem.