York - Beginning JavaScript and CSS Development with jQuery

Beginning JavaScript and CSS Development with jQuery Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
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Indianapolis, IN 46256
www.wiley.com Copyright 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-0-470-22779-4 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data York, Richard. Beginning JavaScript and CSS development with jQuery / Richard York. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-470-22779-4 (paper/website) 1.

JavaScript (Computer program language) 2. Web sites--Design. 3. Cascading style sheets. I. Title.

QA76.73.J38Y67 2009 006.76--dc22 2009005636 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions . Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services.

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JavaScript is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. About the Author Richard York is a web developer and author of three Wrox books in addition to this: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design (Wiley, 2007) , CSS Instant Results (Wiley, 2006), and Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design , 2nd ed (Wiley, 2007).

Website: www.deadmarshes.com Credits Senior Development Editor Tom Dinse Technical Editor Sam Judson Senior Production Editor Debra Banninger Copy Editor Cate Caffrey Editorial Manager Mary Beth Wakefield Production Manager Tim Tate Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Richard Swadley Vice President and Executive Publisher Barry Pruett Associate Publisher Jim Minatel Project Coordinator, Cover Lynsey Stanford Compositor James D. Kramer, Happenstance Type-o-Rama Proofreader Nancy Carrasco Indexer J & J Indexing Introduction The jQuery JavaScript framework is a rising star in the world of web development. JavaScript frameworks in general have grown to become immensely popular in the past few years in parallel with the ever-increasing presence of JavaScript-driven, so-called Web 2.0 websites that make heavy use of technologies like AJAX and JavaScript in general for slick graphical enhancements that would be impossible or much more cumbersome to incorporate without JavaScript. jQuerys mission as a JavaScript library is simple it strives to make the lives of web developers easier by patching over certain portions of cross-browser development and by making other tasks commonly needed by developers much easier. jQuery has the real, proven ability to reduce many lines of plain-vanilla JavaScript to just a few lines, and, in many cases, just a single line. jQuery is a compact, lightweight library that currently works in Microsofts Internet Explorer browser from version 6 on, Firefox from version 1.5 on, Safari from version 2.0.2 on, Opera from version 9 on, and Googles new Chrome browser from version 0.2 on. jQuery is a compact, lightweight library that currently works in Microsofts Internet Explorer browser from version 6 on, Firefox from version 1.5 on, Safari from version 2.0.2 on, Opera from version 9 on, and Googles new Chrome browser from version 0.2 on.

Getting started with jQuery is very easy all you have to do is include a single link of markup in your HTML or XHTML documents that includes the library. Throughout this book, I demonstrate jQuerys API (Application Programming Interface) components in detail and show you how all the nuts and bolts of this framework come together to enable you to rapidly develop client-side applications. I also cover the jQuery UI library, which makes redundant user-interface (UI) tasks on the client side ridiculously easy and accessible to everyday web developers who might not have much JavaScript programming expertise. Have you ever wanted to create an animated accordion effect like the one found on Apples Mac home page at www.apple.com/mac ? With jQuery, not only can you create this effect with your own look and feel, but also its dead simple to boot. Have you ever wondered how websites make virtual pop-up windows using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS? The jQuery UI library provides the ability to create these pop-up windows and includes the ability to animate transitions like fading the window on and off, or having it re-size from very small to full sized. The jQuery UI library gives you the ability to use animations and transitions using JavaScript, markup, and CSS that you may have thought previously could only have been done with Adobes Flash player.

The jQuery framework itself has enjoyed a great deal of mainstream exposure. It has been used by Google, Dell, Digg, NBC, CBS, Netflix, The Mozilla Foundation, and the popular WordPress and Drupal PHP frameworks. jQuery is fast superfast and it has a small footprint. Its only 15 KB, using the compressed and gzipped version. jQuery gives you the ability to provide complex, professional, visually driven user interfaces and effects with very few lines of code. What may have taken other developers days or even weeks to accomplish can be done with jQuery in just a few hours.