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Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action
Read an excerpt:
Chapter 8: All About Objects
Excerpt provided courtesy of Manning Publications. Copyright Š Manning Publications Co. Written permission from the publisher is required for any use of this material.
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Customer Reviews: 1 Average Customer Rating:  Write a Review and tell the world about this title! People who purchase this book frequently purchase: - RESTful Web Services; Leonard Richardson, et al, $23.95, 40% Off!
- Ajax in Action; Dave Crane, et al, $26.95, 40% Off!
- Ajax in Practice; Dave Crane, et al, $26.95, 40% Off!
- Java Persistence with Hibernate; Christian Bauer, et al, $35.95, 40% Off!
Books on similar topics, in best-seller order:Books from the same publisher, in best-seller order:
As experience with Ajax increases, developers want the standard Ajax capabilities
they repeatedly use to be preprogrammed for them--and that's exactly what Ajax
libraries do. They reduce the pain of handling cross-browser inconsistencies,
they add useful language features, and provide sophisticated functionality.
Of these, Prototype is the most popular JavaScript and Ajax framework for low-level
coding. Scriptaculous builds on Prototype to provide popular high-level user
interface features such as animation, drag and drop, and prebuilt widgets. Together,
they free the developer up to concentrate on building the application. They
make a rich user experience easy to achieve.
This book guides the reader through the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries
feature-by-feature. In just 350 pages, it shows over 100 small working examples
that help readers explore the libraries, and they develop a web-based image
gallery that teaches them how to use Prototype and Scriptaculous in the real-world.
What's Inside
- Learn about the next step in the evolution of Ajax.
- Over 100 working examples plus a full-scale image gallery project--complete
with slideshow capability.
- How to build better Ajax applications faster by using pre-built features
in the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries.
- All about Prototype on Rails.
- Foreword by the creator of Scriptaculous, Thomas Fuchs.
About the Authors
Dave Crane is an Ajax authority and lead author of the best-selling
Ajax in Action. He is currently senior developer for UK-based Historic
Futures Ltd., developing the next generation of socially responsible supply-chain
systems using Ajax to link rural cooperatives and multinational corporations.
Michael "Bear" Bibeault is a US-based Java programmer with
over 20 years' experience in enterprise and Web applications. Hešs a popular
moderator on The Java Ranch and coauthor of the upcoming Ajax in Practice.
Tom Locke is an UK-based independent web developer and trainer
specializing in Ruby on Rails. He is the creator of Logix, a multi-language
programming system, and the CTO of LiveLogix.
Customer Reviews
Customer Reviews: 1 Average Customer Rating: May 7, 2007 Frank Stepanski from USA
Great book on JavaScript and libraries
JavaScript libraries have been in the spotlight the past two years and have been gaining popularity especially the past year with new ones popping up like JQuery, YUI!, Mochikit, etc. Though all of these libraries take after in some form or another the base library Prototype and effect library Scriptaculous. Thomas Fuchs is the main developer of the Scriptaculous library and Sam Stephenson is the developer of ProtoType. Although you can go to web site and go through the documentation at each site, having a book with other peoples explanations and examples are a great help for the newbie and advanced user. Each library has its own purpose so the authors take them one by one and explain what can be done with each and then show examples as they go. I like how all the example code are pointed out in the text as the author goes through them so you can understand the program flow as you are reading through the explanations. As a preface for people interested in buying this book, you should have a solid foundation on JavaScript or at least have a good understanding of OOP techniques in other languages. Since this book goes through many Ajax implementations as well, knowledge of a server-side language (PHP, ASP.NET, Java) would also be helpful. I feel that if you are a beginner to JavaScript or programming that this book may well overwhelm you with technical information that you might not fully understand. But enough of that, lets get on with the details of the book. Chapter 1: A description, history and simple sample usage examples are given to the reader about Prototype and Scriptaculous. Basically Prototype provides a set of language extensions for JavaScript, for the browser environment and for the XMLHttpRequest (object used for Ajax) object. Scriptaculous (and other libraries) build on Prototypes foundations to create widgets and other end-user stuff. The thing that sounds weird for people like me who dont use JavaScript on a day-to-day basis is that JavaScript can be extended. I use JavaScript at work on some projects creating some simple DOM scripts but I never knew you could extend the language. JavaScript provides a mechanism known as prototype-based inheritance which allows for this. Prototype doesnt really do anything apart from making it easier to create complex client applications. Though it does do a lot in that sense, but the author has to then use these extensions to create their applications. Scrptaculous makes creating cool effects such as drag and drop, animation and such in only a few lines of code. The author expands on this as well as some simple Ajax illustrations using Prototypes Ajax.Request class in the first chapter. Chapter 2: A sample application is discussed called QuickGallery that displays a set of images in a photo gallery display using PHP to perform some server-side functions. The author created two versions of this web app (classic page refreshing) and the web 2.0 (Ajax version) to show the readers what changes would be made and why. The application is simple enough but has enough detail to make this example a realistic scenario of converting a real web application to a more Ajax-based application. Chapter 3: Some basic techniques of Ajax development are discussed such as content-centric Ajax, script-centric Ajax, and data-centric Ajax. A review of Prototypes Ajax classes: Ajax.Base, Ajax.Request as well as using XML and JSON for data storage and transfer. A very good base for general Ajax knowledge. Chapter 4: The web applications is continued to be updated using some of the more advanced Ajax classes in Prototype such as Ajax.Updater, Ajax.PeriodicalUpdater, Ajax.Responders. The author also touches on performance issues with different techniques which really can open your eyes when you are thinking of implementing Ajax in your own web apps. Chapter 5, 6: If you ever have a need for a nice effect (hiding/showing, highlighting, sliding in any direction, transition effects, etc) or how to quickly use a widget this is where you want to go. The Scriptaculous library allows developers to create Flash-like effects with text and graphics without making the user download any plugins. But be warned, do not create effects for the sake of creating effects. These should be used for a particular reason and no matter how cool the effect is, after a few times everything gets old. Useful widgets like the Slider, AutoComplete loader, InPlaceCollectionEditor and text-editor are discusses with great examples. If you in need of some nice pre-created controls to use with your custom CMS or data-entry web pages these could come in handy. Just be aware of the overheard of some of these. These are probably more useful for in-house or intranet sites. Chapter 7: Continuing with the Scriptaculous library, the author goes in to how to use Drag and Drop in creating some useful Ajax sites. The author goes into great detail of how the process works and all the properties and methods that are available to the developer. This chapter alone gives you 10x more information that the existing documentation on the Scriptaculous website or any resources online that you could find. Very well written and useful chapter. Chapter 8-10: These chapters are very useful as a reference tool for any developer who needs some assistance (like me) on creating JavaScript objects, hashes, or DOM. You would probably have to get at least another book to the information in these 3 chapters alone. A great addition!!! This book should be in your library if you are planning to use one of these powerful and useful libraries as well as if you want to learn more advanced topics in JavaScript too! Worth every penny
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