jQuery in Action

These comments (and the star rating) are very specifically from the point of view of someone who wants to add some interactivity and AJAX to web pages using the most straightforward efficient method, which is with JQuery. THE GOOD: These guys absolutely know JQuery and JavaScript. They are fluent experts and authorities. They know the minute details and the inner guts. Also, they put a great deal of effort into this book. They built some good downloadable learning tools for the early sections and thought about the organization of the material. THE BAD: Too few examples. Often complex commands are introduced without even an example to illustrate the syntax. (FOR EXAMPLE, early on when selectors are discussed, they introduce a selector that requires quotes. That selector itself must be contained in quotes. They never show how the quotes within quotes syntax is handled). The examples that are included are often not simple or straightforward. To illustrate AJAX their example gratuitously includes a custom plugin. I'd much rather have more examples of variations of the AJAX calls in the AJAX section instead of one long clunky example that illustrates only limited cases of the various jQuery Ajax methods. In several cases, The most complex JQuery method with more than a dozen possible parameters is simply listed with the parameters barely explained with no examples at all. Maybe if I was a professional JavaScript programmer a lot of the left out stuff would be trivial or obvious. But it wasn't for me. In other places there is a surfeit of unnecessary technical material. The chapter on events, for example, starts off with long sections on the DOM event model and cross browser issues without a HINT that those issues aren't material to the JQuery user (that's the point! JQuery handles that stuff so I don't need to know). Stylistically, these guys seem to be inspired either by ad copy (there is a ridiculous surfeit of exclamations!) or by programming blogs. They have the a fondness for jargon and dogma that seems to be the morass of the self-educated technophile. Many pages are wasted with examples of How HORRIBLE it was in the days before jQuery. In some sections (like the beginning of the AJAX section) they elaborate on the complexities of browser differences for AJAX calls. One of the most complicated sections in the book, only to show that you really don't need to know any of that stuff thanks to The Miracle of jQuery! (!)) INTERNET EXPLORER: As far as these guys are concerned, Internet Explorer is a bastard stepchild marginal fringe case. They seem embarrassed and appalled that they have to mention it within their pristine pages. OK. They don't like it. But more than half the browsers out there are IE and IE 8 continues to have its own quirks and not follow standards. DEAL WITH IT. JQuery itself has very much code dedicated to sorting out IE issues. It would be nice if the authors would hit that issue head on. A simple list of the various things you can do with JQuery that fix previous browser difficulties that required different code (CSS properties or JavaScript DOM issues) would be nice. Dealing with Internet Explorer hassles (and cross browser hassles in general) is one of the great gifts of JQuery. Marginalizing that gift because of a distaste for the major browser (like it or not) just is not helpful. I'm not saying they deny the existence of IE. They just don't make it a focus at any point. FIREBUG: The authors wait till quite late in the book and then treat it as a sort of aside. Firebug is THE javascrip debugger for Firefox. The authors (in their brief aside) acknowledge that no one should be writing anything in JavaScript (and so, in jQuery) without using a debugger. Firebug is a fantastic learning tool for jQuery and makes the downloadable "lab" pages the authors provide more or less unnecessary. Since the authors clearly use Firebug themselves and acknowledge how useful and important it is, why do they barely give it a mention? I bet they used it when they were learning jQuery. I don't like giving a book like this which clearly shows the earmarks of expertise and hard work a negative review. It may be the best JQuery book out there (I haven't read any others yet), but this book seriously needs some editing. Either that or I am simply the wrong audience. I do believe a professional JavaScript programmer would get more out of this than I did. But in any event, the book should decide if it wants to be a reference, a tutorial, or both. I just think it's not a great introduction to a great subject. And I know it's a lousy reference, because I tried to go back to some chapters to look up syntax. Hard to find. Hard to read. And few examples. A good web development framework anticipates what you need to do and makes those tasks easier and more efficient; jQuery practically reads your mind. Developers of every stripe-hobbyists and professionals alike-fall in love with jQuery the minute they've reduced 20 lines of clunky JavaScript into three lines of elegant, readable code. This new, concise JavaScript library radically simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages. jQuery in Action, like jQuery itself, is a concise tool designed to make you a more efficient and effective web developer. In a short 300 pages, this book introduces you to the jQuery programming model and guides you through the major features and techniques you'll need to be productive immediately. The book anchors each new concept in the tasks you'll tackle in day-to-day web development and offers unique lab pages where you immediately put your jQuery knowledge to work. There are dozens of JavaScript libraries available now, with major companies like Google, Yahoo and AOL open-sourcing their in-house tools. This book shows you how jQuery stacks up against other libraries and helps you navigate interaction with other tools and frameworks. jQuery in Action offers a rich investigation of the up-and-coming jQuery library for client-side JavaScript. This book covers all major features and capabilities in a manner focused on getting the reader up and running with jQuery from the very first sections. Web Developers reading this book will gain a deep understanding of how to use jQuery to simplify their pages and lives, as well as learn the philosophy behind writing jQuery-enhanced pages. jQuery in Action......Page 1 foreword......Page 12 preface......Page 14 acknowledgments......Page 17 Yehuda Katz......Page 18 about this book......Page 20 Roadmap......Page 21 Code downloads......Page 23 Author Online......Page 24 about the authors......Page 25 about the title......Page 27 about the cover illustration......Page 28 Introducing jQuery......Page 30 ###......Page 31 1.2 Unobtrusive JavaScript......Page 32 1.3 jQuery fundamentals......Page 34 1.3.1 The jQuery wrapper......Page 35 1.3.2 Utility functions......Page 37 1.3.3 The document ready handler......Page 38 1.3.4 Making DOM elements......Page 40 1.3.5 Extending jQuery......Page 41 1.4 Summary......Page 43 Creating the wrapped element set......Page 45 2.1 Selecting elements for manipulation......Page 46 2.1.1 Using basic CSS selectors......Page 48 2.1.2 Using child, container, and attribute selectors......Page 49 2.1.3 Selecting by position......Page 53 2.1.4 Using custom jQuery selectors......Page 56 2.2 Generating new HTML......Page 60 2.3 Managing the wrapped element set......Page 61 2.3.2 Obtaining elements from the wrapped set......Page 63 2.3.3 Slicing and dicing the wrapped element set......Page 65 2.3.4 Getting wrapped sets using relationships......Page 72 2.3.5 Even more ways to use a wrapped set......Page 73 2.3.6 Managing jQuery chains......Page 74 2.4 Summary......Page 76 Bringing pages to life with jQuery......Page 77 3.1 Manipulating element properties and attributes......Page 78 3.1.1 Manipulating element properties......Page 80 3.1.2 Fetching attribute values......Page 81 3.1.3 Setting attribute values......Page 83 3.1.5 Fun with attributes......Page 85 3.2.1 Adding and removing class names......Page 87 3.2.2 Getting and setting styles......Page 90 3.2.3 More useful style-related commands......Page 96 3.3.1 Replacing HTML or text content......Page 97 3.3.2 Moving and copying elements......Page 99 3.3.3 Wrapping elements......Page 104 3.3.4 Removing elements......Page 105 3.3.5 Cloning elements......Page 107 3.4 Dealing with form element values......Page 108 3.5 Summary......Page 110 Events are where it happens!......Page 111 4.1 Understanding the browser event models......Page 113 4.1.1 The DOM Level 0 Event Model......Page 114 4.1.2 The DOM Level 2 Event Model......Page 120 4.1.3 The Internet Explorer Event Model......Page 126 4.2.1 Binding event handlers using jQuery......Page 127 4.2.2 Removing event handlers......Page 132 4.2.3 Inspecting the Event instance......Page 133 4.2.5 Triggering event handlers......Page 135 4.2.6 Other event-related commands......Page 136 4.3 Putting events (and more) to work......Page 141 4.4 Summary......Page 153 Sprucing up with animations and effects......Page 155 5.1 Showing and hiding elements......Page 156 5.1.1 Implementing a collapsible list......Page 157 5.1.2 Toggling the display state of elements......Page 163 5.2.1 Showing and hiding elements gradually......Page 164 5.2.2 Fading elements into and out of existence......Page 169 5.2.3 Sliding elements up and down......Page 172 5.3 Creating custom animations......Page 174 5.3.2 A custom drop animation......Page 177 5.3.3 A custom puff animation......Page 179 5.4 Summary......Page 181 jQuery utility functions......Page 182 6.1 Using the jQuery flags......Page 183 6.1.1 Detecting the user agent......Page 184 6.1.2 Determining the box model......Page 190 6.2 Using other libraries with jQuery......Page 192 6.3 Manipulating JavaScript objects and collections......Page 196 6.3.1 Trimming strings......Page 197 6.3.2 Iterating through properties and collections......Page 198 6.3.3 Filtering arrays......Page 199 6.3.4 Translating arrays......Page 201 6.3.5 More fun with JavaScript arrays......Page 204 6.3.6 Extending objects......Page 205 6.4 Dynamically loading scripts......Page 209 6.5 Summary......Page 213 Extending jQuery with custom plugins......Page 214 7.1 Why extend?......Page 215 7.2.1 Naming files and functions......Page 216 7.2.2 Beware the $......Page 218 7.2.3 Taming complex parameter lists......Page 219 7.3 Writing custom utility functions......Page 221 7.3.1 Creating a data manipulation utility function......Page 222 7.3.2 Writing a date formatter......Page 224 7.4 Adding new wrapper methods......Page 228 7.4.1 Applying multiple operations in a wrapper method......Page 230 7.4.2 Retaining state within a wrapper method......Page 235 7.5 Summary......Page 245 Talk to the server with Ajax......Page 246 8.1 Brushing up on Ajax......Page 247 8.1.1 Creating an XHR instance......Page 248 8.1.2 Initiating the request......Page 250 8.1.3 Keeping track of progress......Page 251 8.1.4 Getting the response......Page 252 8.2 Loading content into elements......Page 253 8.2.1 Loading content with jQuery......Page 255 8.2.2 Loading dynamic inventory data......Page 258 8.3 Making GET and POST requests......Page 262 8.3.1 Getting data with jQuery......Page 263 8.3.2 Getting JSON data......Page 265 8.3.3 Making POST requests......Page 277 8.4.1 Making Ajax requests with all the trimmings......Page 278 8.4.2 Setting request defaults......Page 281 8.4.3 Global functions......Page 282 8.5 Putting it all together......Page 287 8.5.1 Implementing the flyout behavior......Page 288 8.5.2 Using The Termifier......Page 291 8.5.3 Room for improvement......Page 293 8.6 Summary......Page 295 Prominent, powerful, and practical plugins......Page 297 9.1 The Form Plugin......Page 298 9.1.1 Getting form control values......Page 299 9.1.2 Clearing and resetting form controls......Page 303 9.1.3 Submitting forms through Ajax......Page 305 9.1.4 Uploading files......Page 313 9.2.1 Extended width and height methods......Page 314 9.2.2 Getting scroll dimensions......Page 316 9.2.3 Of offsets and positions......Page 318 9.3.1 Establishing proactive event handlers......Page 321 9.3.3 Forcing Live Query evaluation......Page 323 9.3.4 Expiring Live Query listeners......Page 324 9.4 Introduction to the UI Plugin......Page 328 9.4.1 Mouse interactions......Page 329 9.5 Summary......Page 345 9.6 The end?......Page 346 appendix: JavaScript that you need to know but might not!......Page 348 A.1.1 How objects come to be......Page 349 A.1.2 Properties of objects......Page 350 A.1.3 Object literals......Page 353 A.1.4 Objects as window properties......Page 354 A.2 Functions as first-class citizens......Page 355 A.2.1 What’s in a name?......Page 356 A.2.2 Functions as callbacks......Page 358 A.2.3 What’s this all about?......Page 359 A.2.4 Closures......Page 363 A.3 Summary......Page 366 A......Page 368 D......Page 369 E......Page 370 I......Page 371 J......Page 372 O......Page 373 S......Page 374 W......Page 375 Z......Page 376

A good web development framework anticipates what you need to do and makes those tasks easier and more efficient; jQuery practically reads your mind. Developers of every stripe-hobbyists and professionals alike-fall in love with jQuery the minute they've reduced 20 lines of clunky JavaScript into three lines of elegant, readable code. This new, concise JavaScript library radically simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages.

jQuery in Action, like jQuery itself, is a concise tool designed to make you a more efficient and effective web developer. In a short 300 pages, this book introduces you to the jQuery programming model and guides you through the major features and techniques you'll need to be productive immediately. The book anchors each new concept in the tasks you'll tackle in day-to-day web development and offers unique lab pages where you immediately put your jQuery knowledge to work.

There are dozens of JavaScript libraries available now, with major companies like Google, Yahoo and AOL open-sourcing their in-house tools. This book shows you how jQuery stacks up against other libraries and helps you navigate interaction with other tools and frameworks.

jQuery in Action offers a rich investigation of the up-and-coming jQuery library for client-side JavaScript. This book covers all major features and capabilities in a manner focused on getting the reader up and running with jQuery from the very first sections. Web Developers reading this book will gain a deep understanding of how to use jQuery to simplify their pages and lives, as well as learn the philosophy behind writing jQuery-enhanced pages.

"JQuery is a fast-paced introduction and guide. It shows you how to traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax to your Web pages. The book's unique "lab pages" anchor the explanation of each new concept in a practical example. You'll learn how jQuery interacts with other tools and frameworks and how to build jQuery plugins. This book requires a modest knowledge of JavaScript and Ajax."--Jacket