Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action [Ajax] [Paperback]

Dave Crane (Author), Bear Bibeault (Author), Tom Locke (Author), Thomas Fuchs (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A good solid intro. ... There is fantastically useful stuff about JavaScript itself as well as Prototype; for example the section of function contexts and closures is one of the best I have read on the subject. -- N. J. Ferrier at Amazon UK

Pretty darned definitive Plenty of useful examples, including counter-examples Shows how to migrate existing code, not just start from scratch Scriptaculous labs are excellent, and are available for download Okay, all the labs are excellent JavaScript haters beware! Prototype, Scriptaculous, and yes, this excellent book about these two JavaScript libraries, could change your mind. After reading Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action, you are in danger of saying to yourself, "Hey, I'd like to try some of this stuff out," and, before you even realize it, you're writing JavaScript, getting stuff done, and maybe even enjoying it.

This book should rightly be considered the bible of Prototype and Scriptaculous. Just download and run the source code for the book (available online for free), for a real taste of what this book offers. -- John Guthrie at JavaLobby

This book should be in your library if you are planning to use one of these powerful and useful libraries as well as if you want to learn more advanced topics in JavaScript too! Worth every penny. -- Frank Stepanski at Barnes and Noble and bookpool.com

Product Description

"This book should rightly be considered the bible of Prototype and Scriptaculous."
-- JavaLobby

Prototype and Scriptaculous are libraries that extend standard Ajax. They make it easier to program Ajax and provide powerful features like drag and drop and animation. In this book, developers learn by playing and see how the libraries work in the real world.

As experience with Ajax increases, developers want the standard Ajax capabilities they repeatedly use to be preprogrammed for them--and that's exactly what Ajax libraries do for them. They reduce the pain of handling cross-browser inconsistencies, they add useful language features, and provide sophisticated functionality. Of these, Prototype is the most popular JavaScript and Ajax framework for low-level user interface features such as animation, drag and drop, and pre-built widgets. Together, they free the developer up to concentrate on building the application. They make a rich user experience easy to achieve.

This book guides the reader through the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries feature-by-feature. In just 350 pages, readers will find over 100 small working examples to help them explore the libraries. As well, they will develop a web-based image gallery that teacher them how to use Prototype and Scriptaculous in the real-world.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; 1 edition (March 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988037
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988030
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #247,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #13 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Telecommunications > Digital
  #30 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > Ajax
  #8 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Networking > Networks, Protocols & APIs > ISDN

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top-notch tome, June 24, 2007

By	Justin (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action [Ajax] (Paperback)

Javascript has exploded onto the web development scene in the last few years, and powers much of the web 2.0 and Ajax revolution. Every web developer now needs to know how to do common Ajax tasks. Thankfully, Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action makes it both easy and enjoyable.

This is a comprehensive book. The size (510 pages) was initially intimidating, but Prototype and Scriptaculous In Action is exceedingly well written and a genuine pleasure to read. The thorough and thoughtful organization of the book provides some real structure to the discussion, making complex subjects easily digestible. This is the defacto bible of Prototype and Scriptaculous, and these days I turn to this book more than anything else on my shelf.

The book is divided up into four multi-chapter parts, any of which could stand on it's own as a definitive guide. The chapters are full of useful examples, and there's strong emphasis given to migrating existing sites to Prototype and Scriptaculous, which is a major plus. You could turn to any section of the book and immediately see how to inject some new behavior into your existing application, but if you take the time to read from cover-to-cover you'll be rewarded with some deep understanding of both the libraries and Javascript itself.

I'll summarize the four parts of the book:

Part 1, Getting Started, introduces the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries, focusing heavily on Prototype and Ajax. There's a lot of information on re-designing an existing site for Ajax. Two full chapters are devoted to Prototype's Ajax features. You can get up and running VERY quickly after glancing through these chapters. There's also a lot of depth, and consideration is given to the pervasive effects Ajax has on architectural issues and the new ways that an application will have to manage HTTP traffic.

Part 2, Scriptaculous Quickly, covers effects, controls and drag-n-drop. This is hands-down the best Scriptaculous documentation currently available, anywhere. The core effects are explored and tweaked, and there's lot of very practical examples demonstrating some of the niftiest stuff, like running effects in parallel versus sequentially. And the drag-and-drop coverage is incredibly clear, making it easy, almost trivial, to implement. The Scriptaculous coverage is indispensable, and you'll return to it again and again if you implement Scriptaculous-enabled pages.

Part 3, Prototype in Depth, explores Prototype's Javascript-oriented features. There's a fantastic chapter on functions contexts, and the discussion of closures is one of the best I've seen. There's a lot of information about Javascript fundamentals, and how Prototype can be used to implement inheritance, address arrays, and manipulate the DOM in the browser.

And finally, Part 4 Advanced Topics, has two unrelated chapters. The first chapter overhauls an example app, giving it a Prototype and Scriptaculous makeover. The last chapter is about integration with Ruby on Rails. Prototype was initially written as the Ajax interface to Rails, so there's some strong integration.

As a long-time enterprise web developer, dealing with Javascript has always been a chore. But now I actually (gasp) look forward to tasks that involve Javascript. I'm a convert, and I have Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action to thank.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, May 21, 2007

By	Andrew Otwell "heyotwell" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action [Ajax] (Paperback)

I wrote a longer review that Amazon has apparently lost. Oh well. This is an excellent book, very well written. The authors are the rarest kind of technical author: they can actually construct prose that is pleasant to read, not deadly boring, but which works well as a reference book later. The book's organized thoughtfully--it's certainly much more than just an API reference. There's also quite a lot of general advanced Javascript information here, too.

There's at least one other book on these libraries in production from Pragmatic Programmers. If you're considering that, I strongly suggest downloading the sample chapters of both books and comparing. The Crane book is much more appealing to me (not to mention it's available now, not in six months).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what I hoped for, and more, October 11, 2007

By	Scott Bale (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action [Ajax] (Paperback)

I'm not even halfway through this book yet and I'm already satisfied with my purchase. I look forward to reading about Scriptaculous, but to me the book is already worth it for (a) the treatment of JavaScript in general and the details on object-oriented JavaScript, JSON, and especially JavaScript prototypes and function closures, (b) Prototype, especially how prototype extends JavaScript itself by modifying various object prototypes, and (c) AJAX, including historical perspective, details and gotchas of AJAX request/response versus traditional GET or POST via browser, and the utilities Prototype offers to ease AJAX communication. Additionally, I know this book will make a great reference for it's coverage of the DOM basics and it's appendices on HTTP basics and traffic. There's even some useful contrasting of different server-side options (PHP versus servlets/JSP, etc.) I don't mean to sound like I'm fawning over this book but it's exactly what I hoped to find after working for the first time with all these technologies on a recent project; I wish I'd had this book during that project.