Before You Begin Before You Begin
This Sams Teach Yourself Video Learning Starter Kit is about the two web development technologies that provide the interactivity and visual effects at almost all current web sites and applications today.
JavaScript and Ajax are at work behind the scenes and on the homepages of everything from the simplest blog to huge sites like Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, with millions of subscribers and users worldwide.
While the videos in this course most likely wont show you how to develop the next Google Gmail or Yahoo homepage, they will give even non-programmers a solid understanding of how JavaScript and Ajax work and how you too can easily learn the basics of using JavaScript and Ajax, and begin to add interactivity and dynamic content to your own web site, large or small.
Before you get started watching the videos, however, we suggest that you first take a few minutes to review the material in this booklet. The information here will help you make sure you have all the equipment thats needed to watch the videos and do the exercises, and it will help you make best use of all the unique features of these courses as well as the software thats also on the DVD.
About JavaScript and Ajax
Over the last decade or so the World Wide Web has grown in scope from being a relatively simple information repository, to become the first stop for many people when seeking entertainment, education, news or business resources.
Web sites themselves need no longer be limited to a number of static pages containing text and perhaps simple images; the tools now available allow the development of highly interactive and engaging pages involving animations, visual effects, context-sensitive content, embedded productivity tools, and much more.
The list of technologies available for producing such pages is broad. However, those based on open standards have become, and remain, highly popular due to their typically low (often zero) entry cost, and to the huge resource of user-contributed scripts, tutorials, tools and other resources for these tools and applications available via the Internet and elsewhere.
In this video course, we give a detailed account of how to program fluid, interactive web sites using server- and client-side coding techniques and tools, as well as combining these to produce a slick, desktop-application-like user experience using Ajax.
The programming languages used in this book include the ubiquitous JavaScript (for client-side programming), and the immensely popular open-source PHP language (for server-side scripting, and available with the majority of web hosting packages). The nuts and bolts of Ajax programming are described in detail, as well as the use of several advanced open-source frameworks that contain ready-written code for quickly building state-of-the-art interactive sites.
About The Video Lessons
Sams Teach Yourself Video Learning courses are designed not only for beginners, but also for busy, time-crunched people who arent able to devote the large blocks of time often required to take a full class on a subject, or to read some thick tome that covers everything in more detail than youll ever need.
Each lesson in this course takes no more that 10 minutes to complete three basic steps:
- Watch the video tutorial.
- Try the hands-on examples in the lab section.
- Take a short quiz to test yourself before moving on.
The short video tutorials clearly explain key concepts, terms, and techniques, and are rich in diagrams and clear, real-world examples. Plus, you can stop, start, pause or replay any part of the video you want, as often as you want, until you feel you really understand it.
After youve watched the video tutorial, you then you get to try it yourself and put what youve learned to work in a unique hands-on learning lab that helps you begin to develop real live programs that you can use on your own web site.
The software that you need to complete the exercises is included on the DVD. And as you continue to watch the lesson on your computer, youre guided step by step through the process of creating your own usable code.
Once youre done trying things out in the learning lab each lesson ends with a short, easy quiz so you can test what youve learned before you go on to the next lesson.
Who This Video Learning Kit is For
This course is aimed primarily at web developers seeking to build better interfaces for the users of their web applications and programmers from desktop environments looking to transfer their applications to the Internet.
It also proves useful to web designers eager to learn how the latest techniques can offer new outlets for their creativity.
Although the nature of JavaScript, Ajax, and PHP applications means that they require some programming, all of the required technologies are explained from first principles within the book, so even those with little or no programming experience should be able to follow the lessons without a great deal of difficulty.
This course does not teach HTML. And although a thorough knowledge of HTML is not necessarily a prerequisite, the course does assumes a basic understanding of how web pages are constructed, where theyre stored and maintained, and how a user interacts with them through a web browser.
Whats on the DVD
The DVD for Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript and Ajax Video Learning has several components—all accessible by either a Windows or a Mac computer:
- 25 ten-minute video lessons—each made up of a short video tutorial, a hands-on learning lab for trying things out, and a short self-assessment quiz at the end.
- Software for the learning labs—an easy-to-install package to set up a PHP- and MySQL-enabled Apache server on your computer, a script editing program, three JavaScript and Ajax libraries, and source code that you can cut-and-paste or customize in your own scripts.
- The complete text of the lessons in PDF—All the video lessons in this course are based on chapters from the print book Sams Teach Yourself Ajax, JavaScript and PHP All in One. So to help you out if you want to re-read a particular lesson or quickly look up a term or technique, weve included the full text of the book in easily searchable PDF format.
How the Course Is Organized
Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript and Ajax Video Learning is organized into five parts, with each part made up of three to six lessons, each designed to be completed in 10 minutes or less.
Part I: Web Basics Refresher
The lessons in Part I provide a refresher on the fundamental building blocks of Web development:
- Lesson 1: Workings of the Web. Introduces you to what the World Wide Web is and its key HTTP protocol.
- Lesson 2: Writing Pages in HTML and CSS. Provides you with a sound foundation in HTML and CSS for the Ajax applications in later lessons.
- Lesson 3: Anatomy of an Ajax Application. Examines the individual building blocks of Ajax and how they fit together.
Part II: Web Scripting with JavaScript
The lessons in Part II covers the basics of adding scripting to web pages using JavaScript:
- Lesson 4: Creating Simple Scripts in JavaScript. Shows you how to create a simple script, edit it, and test it using a web browser.
- Lesson 5: Working with the DOM. Introduces one of the most important tools youll use with JavaScript: the Document Object Model (DOM).
- Lesson 6: Variables, Strings, and Arrays. Explains three tools for storing data in JavaScript: variables, which store numbers or text; strings, which are special variables for working with text; and arrays, which are multiple variables you can refer to by number.
- Lesson 7: Using Functions and Objects. Covers two more key JavaScript concepts youll use later on with Ajax: functions, which enable you to group any number of statements into a block, and objects, which enable you to group data.
- Lesson 8: Conditions and Loops - Controlling Flow. Examines two ways to control program flow in JavaScript: conditions, which allow a choice of difference options depending on a value, and loops, which allow repetitive statements.
- Lesson 9: Using Built-In Functions and Third-Party Libraries. Covers the use of some key objects in JavaScript, including Math and Date, as well as third-party libraries
Part III: Introducing Ajax
The lessons in Part III introduce Ajax technologies for extending JavaScripts capabilities:
- Lesson 10: The XMLHTTPRequest Object. Examines the object at the heart of every Ajax application — the XMLHTTPRequest object.
- Lesson 11: Talking with the Server. Shows how to send requests to, and receive data from, the server.
- Lesson 12: Using the Returned Data. Examines how to process information returned from the server in response to an Ajax request.
- Lesson 13: Our First Ajax Application. Shows how to construct a complete and working Ajax application.
Part IV: Server-Side Scripting with PHP
The lessons in Part IV deal with using PHP to communicate with a web server and extend Ajax applications:
- Lesson 14: Getting to Know PHP. Tells you what PHP is all about and what its able to do.
- Lesson 15: Variables. Examines how to assign values to variables in PHP and how to use them in some simple expressions.
- Lesson 16: Flow Control. Looks at how to control the flow of a PHP script using conditional statements and loops
- Lesson 17: Functions. Explains how frequently used sections of code can be turned into reusable functions.
- Lesson 18: Using Classes. Covers the basics of object-oriented PHP
Part V: Advanced Ajax Programming
Part IV looks at some advanced Ajax techniques for handling data and at building a library of Ajax scripts
- Lesson 19: Returning Data as Text. Shows how to use the responseText property to add functionality to Ajax applications.
- Lesson 20: Asynchronous HTML and HTTP (AHAH). Explains how to build Ajax-style applications without using XML.
- Lesson 21: Returning Data as XML. Shows how to use XML data returned from the server via the responseXML property of the XMLHTTPRequest object
- Lesson 22: Implementing Web Services with REST and SOAP. Discusses the basics of web services and how to implement them using the REST and SOAP protocols.
- Lesson 23: Building an Ajax Library. Explains how to build a small library of scripts that you can call from your applications.
- Lesson 24: Avoiding Ajax Gotchas. Discusses some of the common Ajax mistakes and how to avoid them.
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