books by Dave Crane
Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action
Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action is a comprehensive, practical guide that walks you feature-by-feature through the two libraries. First, you'll use Scriptaculous to make easy but powerful UI improvements. Then you'll dig into Prototype's elegant and sparse syntax. See how a few characters of Prototype code can save a dozen lines of JavaScript. By applying these techniques, you can concentrate on the function and flow of your application instead of the coding details.
Ajax in Practice
After a brief overview of Ajax, this book takes the reader through dozens of working examples, presented in an easy-to-use cookbook format. Readers will learn how to implement drag-and-drop interfaces and discover how to create effective navigation strategies for their applications. Unlike a traditional cookbook, Ajax in Practice provides a thorough discussion of each technique presented and shows how the individual components can be connected to create powerful solutions. A fun "mash-up" chapter concludes the book. Throughout the book, the examples chosen are interesting, entertaining, and practical.
Ajax in Action
Web users are getting tired of the traditional web experience. They get frustrated losing their scroll position; they get annoyed waiting for refresh; they struggle to reorient themselves on every new page. And the list goes on. With asynchronous JavaScript and XML, known as "Ajax," you can give them a better experience. Once users have experienced an Ajax interface, they hate to go back. Ajax is a new way of thinking that can result in a flowing and intuitive interaction with the user.
Ajax in Action helps you implement that thinking— it explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server (hint: use a "nested MVC" design) while retaining the integrity of the system. You will learn how to ensure your app is flexible and maintainable, and how good, structured design can help avoid problems like browser incompatibilities. Along the way it helps you unlearn many old coding habits. Above all, it opens your mind to the many advantages gained by placing much of the processing in the browser.
