Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us (Expert's Voice in Web Development)
- Media: Book (Paperback, 352 pages)
- ISBN: 1590599195
- Publisher: Apress
- Release Date: Jun 23, 2008
Product Description
As a JavaScript developer, you will already be aware of some of the time saving, convenience, and functionality provided to you by JavaScript/Ajax libraries in general. Prototype (www.prototypejs.org) and its sister effects library, script.aculo.us (http://script.aculo.us/), are among the most popular and best–supported JavaScript libraries, and now Prototype Core dev team member Andrew Dupont has written this book to provide you with an essential guide to getting the most out of using Prototype and script.aculo.us.
Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us will help you leverage the Prototype and script.aculo.us libraries to enhance your day–to–day work, speeding up mundane tasks and providing advanced UI effects in a way that is cross–browser compliant—taking many worries off your shoulders. Take a whirlwind tour of the different time–saving functions and features Prototype provides and how it extends the basic JavaScript objects, including events, Ajax techniques, DOM elements, enumerables, and advanced OOP. Understand how script.aculo.us fits into the wider world of DOM Scripting/DHTML; find out how to use it to enhance your UIs quickly and effectively, with UI controls, effects, and drag and drop; and discover Prototype and script.aculo.us as a platform.
The author avoids needless theory and rhetoric throughout the book, moving you through the topics at a fast pace. He incorporates several real–world examples to help you gain valuable practical experience as you learn. Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us is completely up to date and features server–side examples written in PHP that show the framework can be used effectively in more environments than just Ruby on Rails.
- Master all the convenience functions of Prototype to speed up your JavaScript/Ajax development.
- Leverage script.aculo.us to turbo charge your dynamic UIs.
- Learn from JavaScript expert Andrew Dupont, one of the Prototype Core team members.
What you’ll learn
- How to use all of the basic timesaving/convenience functions of Prototype
- How to use enumberables to speed up looping, arrays, etc.
- How to enhance your Ajax applications with Prototype
- How Prototype makes working with events and DOM elements a cinch
- How script.aculo.us fits into DOM Scripting/DHTML
- How to make use of the basic effects available in script.aculo.us
- Mastery of UI controls and drag and drop in script.aculo.us
- How to treat Prototype and script.aculo.us as a platform
- How to use Prototype and script.aculo.us effectively with PHP and other server–side setups besides Ruby on Rails
Who is this book for?
This book is for any JavaScript developer who wants to employ Prototype/script.aculo.us in his or her day–to–day work.
About the Apress Practical Series
The Practical series from Apress is your best choice for getting the job done, period. From professional to expert, this series lets you apply project–motivated templates (or frameworks) step by step in a very direct, practical, and efficient manner toward current real–world projects that may be sitting on your desk. So whatever your career goal, Apress can be your trusted guide to take you where you want to go on your IT career empowerment path.
Related Titles from Apress
- Beginning JavaScript with DOM Scripting and Ajax: From Novice to Professional
- Pro JavaScript Techniques
- Pro DOM Scripting with Ajax, APIs, and Libraries
- AdvancED DOM Scripting: Dynamic Web Design Techniques
Great for Reference
Good Stuff
Outstanding; a clear and easy read
The examples are usually very clear (one used a feature that wasn't introduced until a few pages later, but I've encountered that only once) and are presented in a conversational style without being chatty. Prototype itself appears to be very easy to integrate into a web app; I like both the design and the utility of the library.
Knowing JavaScript beforehand is not strictly necessary so long as one has the requisite background in another language (e.g., Ruby, Java, C, or Objective-C).
The book's physical properties are outstanding as well: the pages are substantial and bright, and the typography is very clear. (I don't care much for the sans-serif font used for the table of contents, but fortunately that's the only portion that's hard to read.)
On the downside, there are a few typos here and there (Google for apress prototype errata) and the screenshots are from Windows, but nobody's perfect. ;-)
All in all, this is an outstanding book. (I'd give it 4.5 stars because of the typos, but it's definitely better than 4 stars, hence the 5-star rating.)
Good for Beginners, But the Examples Are a Little Too Simple
Overall the book does a good job of covering the basics of these two libraries, and I felt that I learned them well, but I thought it could have gone in to much more detail.