JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual

JavaScript lets you supercharge your HTML with animation, interactivity, and visual effects—but many web designers find the language hard to learn. This jargon-free guide covers JavaScript basics and shows you how to save time and effort with the jQuery library of prewritten JavaScript code. You’ll soon be building web pages that feel and act like desktop programs, without having to do much programming.

The important stuff you need to know:

• Make your pages interactive. Create JavaScript events that react to visitor actions.
• Use animations and effects. Build drop-down navigation menus, pop-ups, automated slideshows, and more.
• Improve your user interface. Learn how the pros make websites fun and easy to use.
• Collect data with web forms. Create easy-to-use forms that ensure more accurate visitor responses.
• Add a dash of Ajax. Enable your web pages to communicate with a web server without a page reload.
• Practice with living examples. Get step-by-step tutorials for web projects you can build yourself.

David Sawyer McFarland is the president of Sawyer McFarland Media Inc., a web development and training company located in Portland, Oregon. In addition, he teaches JavaScript programming, Flash, and web design at the University of California, Berkeley, the Center for Electronic Art, the Academy of Art College, and Ex'Pression College for Digital Arts. He was formerly the webmaster at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center. David is also the author of CSS: The Missing Manual and Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual.