The JavaScript Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

I purchased this book out of desperation after using a 1000 page Javascript Wrox book published in 2000 that was worse than useless. The author's blog posting here is very accurate: it is a modern javascript book that gives usable solutions and concepts that work well. I recommend this book to anyone who has at least some programming background and is sick of cut and pasting garbage code from other mickey mouse tutorial sites that break at the slightest change. It is also a great start for working with AJAX, which is what I needed it for. That said, the book is surprisingly a great read. I am reading this book cover to cover and also use it as an every day reference with dozens of tips. It is obvious the authors have worked extensively with web sites and write from experience. Thanks for a job well done!

I didn't really think I needed this book -- I have sever other JavaScript books, including the O'Reilly JavaScript Cookbook, and it seemed like this would just be a duplication. But I kept reading really positive reviews of this and other SitePoint books on sites that I trusted, so I decided to take a flier on it. I'm really glad I did. Unlike some of the O'Reilly books, which are dated at this point, this has really up-to-date, professional code that incorporates best practices. Depending on what kind of JavaScript code base you need to integrate with, you may be able to use this code as-is in many instances. Even if you need to modify it for your own uses, you will never find poorly-organized hackwork here. Also nice is the up-to-date topic selection. Classics like DOM, form validation, drop-down menus, and cookies are supplemented with topics about accessibility, XMLHttpRequest, in-page dialogs, and using class prototypes. When the authors tell you how to launch popups, they also tell you about all the pitfalls and problems. No cookbook is going to cover ever possible topic (personally, I would have liked to see JSON examples), but this one is about as complete as you could reasonably ask for. Really, the only downside about this book that I can see is that you need to have at least an intermediate understanding of JavaScript to understand what's going on. There isn't a lot of handholding, and you will likely want to own both a good tutorial and a solid reference on JavaScript and spend some time with them before you're ready for this book. But if you have a good working knowledge of JavaScript and are looking for practical, well-written examples of how to incorporate new techniques into your code, you won't find a better book than this one.

James Edwards & Cameron Adams' THE JAVASCRIPT ANTHOLOGY: 101 ESSENTIAL TIPS, TRICKS & HACKS compiles a range of solutions to the most common JavaScript questions and problems, offering up tested solutions, standards-compliant tips, and keys to ensuring JavaScript code is clean, accessible and logical. From the basics of making a drop-down or fly-out menu to making attribute tooltips display on focus, THE JAVASCRIPT ANTHOLOGY is a 'must' for any serious Javascript programmer. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Are you involved or interested in building web sites or web applications? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Cameron Adams and James Edwards, have done an outstanding job of writing a practical book for webmasters who are looking for a copy-and-paste solutions to everyday needs. Adams and James Edwards, begin by providing an overview of JavaScript's capabilities and limitations, and introduce some core best practices that they'll be using through the rest of the book. Then, the authors look at techniques for using and processing numbers in JavaScript. They continue by looking at ways of manipulating strings to find information, storing data, and preparing test for output; as well as, including a thorough introduction to regular expressions in JavaScript. Next, the authors introduce you to one of the most powerful data-storage structures in JavaScript: the array. Then, the authors introduce and explore DOM, and look at how to create and read the data from elements, attributes, and text. Then, they look at reading and writing data from different kinds of form widget, address the tasks of validating and processing form data, and discuss techniques for improving the usability of form-based interfaces. They also take a cautious look at manipulating windows and scripting across frames. Next, the authors introduce cookies and show you how to use them effectively. Then, they show you how to get the date and time in JavaScript, how to compare and process dates and times, and how to output the final data in different formats and conventions. They continue by exploring the basic techniques involved in scripting for images. Next, the authors outline techniques for dealing with different browsers and rendering modes. Then, they look at how to read and write the styles from a single element or group of elements, how to read and write CSS rules to an existing or created style sheet, and how to build a style sheet switcher. The authors also cover event-handling in all its flavors, detecting the position and size of an object, tracking the mouse, and making elements appear and disappear. Next, they look at more complex forms of scripting that use motion and animation. Then, the authors include solutions for the problem of menus overlapping select elements in Windows IE 5 and IE 6. They also provide an overview of the current state of play regarding JavaScript and accessibility. The authors continue by showing you how to detect whether a user has the Flash plugin, and mastering communications between JavaScript and Flash. Next, they delve into the exciting area of online application design, including data retrieved using XMLHttpRequest, as well as the older technique of using iframes. Then, the authors introduce OOP, exploring its core concepts and benefits. Finally, the authors look at everyday techniques for writing faster, more efficient code that's shorter and uses less memory. In this most excellent book, you'll find scripts and discussions that

You would think that by the title of this book, you would only use maybe a chapter or two to learn something in particular; or that this book is a just a copy and past DHTML book, but you would be so wrong. Even a beginner in JavaScript would be able to follow the smart and easy to follow examples in this book. The author shows the real ways to debug and figure out your syntax error right at the beginning. After the basics of the first chapter, it slowly covers each topic (Numbers, Strings, Arrays, DOM, Forms, Cookies, etc.) slowly and with such care that it is impossible to get lost or not understand what the author is saying. Each chapter is covered in 2 ways: A regular progression of understanding each topic and intermingling "how-to" sections (solutions) to get the readers attention. It is also a great way for readers who already know JavaScript fairly well to find a particular topic they are looking for. I hate 800+ page books (i.e. Bible books) that can take you so long to find a particular topic or just ramble on and never really teach you anything. This book gives just enough detail with over-explaing, but don't think the book is too brief! I can easily breeze through this book and know exactly how to find the answer in minutes and understand what the author is saying. I've been using JavaScript for a couple years now as well as teaching part-time web design and I've found many chapters very useful already, specifically: Chapter 5 (Navigating the DOM), Chapter 6 (Forms and validation), Chapter 10 (Working with Images), Chapter 13 (Basic Dynamic HTML), and Chapter 15 (DHTML Menus and Navigation). I could use this book for an entire course (15 weeks) and have more than enough material. I've never seen a book that covers how to create a complete professional navigation system (Chapter 15) before. Most people just copy an paste code from sites like (DynamicDrive.com) for fancy DHTML effects, but I always wanted to understand how it was done. All the other JavaScript books I have purchased either never focused on it or was too old to cover the latest browser standards (IE 6, Firefox 1.x, Opera 8). This book has it all. If you really want to understand JavaScript, get this book. It's worth every penny...