JavaScript + CSS + DOM Magic (Paperback)

by Makiko Itoh (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
JavaScript + CSS + DOM Magic has directly applicable projects with step-by-step instructions showing you how to master a feature and adapt it according to their own needs and creativity. The wealth of graphics will make this book easy to read and visually appealing. This book makes JavaScript, CSS and DOM easy to understand by providing directly applicable models to readers' web sites. The book opens with a primer, giving context to the technologies, and then jumps into over 25 step-by-step, directly applicable projects. You will learn the most desired web functionalities, including: frames, mouse-overs, windows, forms, CGI, style sheets, dynamic positioning, and SSI. Reviewers have called this book an unprecedented practical and comprehensive DHTML guide. The CD contains complete working scripts, all images from the book's examples, bonus graphics, trial version of leading text editors (BBEdit Lite, Homesite).

From the Publisher
Web designers: Learn how to code. Dynamic web development technologies are more than the hobby horses of programmers; your knowledge of DHTML and its components--JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and the Document Object Model (DOM)--can make the difference in getting your next job. Makiko Itoh has written an eminently easy-to-learn-from entry into this world: you follow the steps, you play wth the code, you learn it by doing it. Not through 600 pages of tiny-type, but in the popular New Riders Magic-series design: landscape-layout for easy access while you work; visually forgiving, without wasting space. It's what a designer's guide to web coding ought to be. Non-patronizing (the book assumes you know your way around basic HTML and such), and intelligently helpful.

Each project explains why it's relevant to learn this stuff; then you dive in and do it. Fourteen lessons, each of which will make you a better web designer/developer for the learning. No one's asking you to give up being a designer... you'll be that much better of a designer/developer for mastering what's in this book. Let us know how it works for you. Thanks. Steve Weiss, executive editor, [e-mail].

"Any web developer or designer who wants to begin to seriously push the boundaries should pick up this clearly written and forward-thinking book." -- Nick Finck, Digital Web Magazine

"This well-written, clean, and concise book has excellent illustrations for ways of learning. I highly recommend it to people wishing to learn JavaScript." -- Eddie Traversa, dhtml nirvana

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (May 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735711321
• ISBN-13: 978-0735711327
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,346,331 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ready to reform?, June 5, 2002

By	Brett Merkey (Palm Harbor, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Although there are some gems among the projects in this book for any Web professional, the ones who will surely get the most from this book are those who were trained in the old Photoshop "slice and dice" school. Adept in turning a page into an assembly of graphics-laden table cells, they are a bit threatened by all this CSS furor and wonder why the experts say tables are so bad.

If you are one of those people, this book is definitely for you. The author seems to be a former practitioner of Photoshop Phascism herself (one of the book's 14 projects has 71 graphics!) so she knows where you're coming from.

She also knows where you have to get to create modern, clean, easily-maintained code.

Most of the projects are interesting in themselves and with copious illustrations, easy steps, and thoughtful side notes, you should have no trouble following along.

I also really liked the way the code in the accompanying CD was presented. Each directory had an index file with a separate link to each important step. Note: There was often a disconnect between the label in this index and the label used in the book but this did not present an obstacle.

There was a bit of a lapse in testing some of the files before publication. The finished files for projects 3 and 9 did not open in IE6/Windows. The problem was infinite looping caused by the script meant to deal with an infirmity in decrepit old Netscape 4...another reason why this browser should be left behind.

There was another odd lapse for a book that is very free of errors: No, there is no CURSOR property value of ARROW.

One further warning to more advanced Web workers: the reference to DOM in the title may give you the impression that the scripting is the new W3C DOM "node-speak." It is not. Neither is it missed here, because script is not the focus of this fine book. The focus is on good HTML structure and artful styling. If that is your focus too, then this book is for you.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great intermediate-advanced book for designers, August 20, 2003

By A Customer

`People who give this book 1 star ratings because it's not a beginner's book are missing the point. I picked this up because it fills a gaping gap between the Dummies or Teach Yourself in 24 Hours types of books, and the doorstop reference tomes. Like other Magic series books, this is entirely project oriented. While following each project I picked up a bunch of useful tips to get us working stiff web designers over the roadblocks that can prevent us from using CSS or JavaScript effectively. It's`` clear that the author has actually spent time working on real websites, and is not just a theoretician. I have already benefitted from the techniques and hints in the book in my paying projects.

I also appreciated the non-preachy tone: I know that I should be using CSS and XHTML and trying to wean myself away from tables, but there aren't that many books out there that actually show you how to do that without hitting me over the head with the "You Must Follow Standards" hammer. The`` clean, non-fussy designs appeal too. My favorite sections are the CSS section (Part 1) and the last section, which shows what a little imagination using JavaScript, CSS and browsers that support the W3C-DOM specs can produce.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Filled with practical CSS and Javascript tips!, June 10, 2002

By A Customer

First let me say that I'm not a programmer, I'm a designer (I run my own web design business). This book is perfect for someone like me who learns from visual examples. I browsed through this book and decided to buy it when I found an answer to a problem that had me banging my head against a wall with Netscape 6 and image slices getting messed up! (The solution was on page 148.) Once I sat down to read the book I was very glad I got it. It's really not a reference book like so many books about CSS seem to be, but it it shows you many of the pitfalls that you face on _real_ web pages...and better yet, the workarounds for them. I haven't seen any other book like this that really shows you the problems that show up in browsers. It's a refreshing change from the books that say CSS "should" work a certain way - this one shows you how it actually _does_ work, right now. I would recommend this book just for the CSS hints alone which are scattered through the whole book, not just the CSS chapters. Oh, and now I finally "get" what the DOM is!