Access Key, HTML Accesskey Generated by JavaScript

One of the great advantages of using first letter of the link text as access key is that it can be generated by code. Conventional wisdom states that it should be done server-side. Bad that it is much easier with JavaScript.

Tverskov, Jesper. Smack the Mouse (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>JavaScript

Advanced Debugging with JavaScript

When used effectively, JavaScript debuggers help find and squash errors in your JavaScript code. To become an advanced JavaScript debugger, you’ll need to know about the debuggers available to you, the typical JavaScript debugging workflow, and code requirements for effective debugging. In this article, we’ll discuss advanced debugging techniques for diagnosing and treating bugs using a sample web application.

Mills, Chris and Hallvord R. M. Steen. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Programming>JavaScript

Avoid the Void

There are plenty of occasions when coding JavaScript events where you simply need to call a function, for which an entire event registration model is too lengthy. The most commonly used method is to bind your event to an anchor link. The user clicks and the onclick event is fired, calling a reference to a function. Because the user isn’t actually visiting a URL, something has to be done with the href attribute.

Reindel, Brian. d'bug (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>JavaScript

Battle of the Wizards: Dojo Vs. Microsoft

Two wizards are compared. One client script from DOJO and the other server component from Microsoft. Both fo them work exceedingly well in IE 7.0. Dojo wizard looks smashing.

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. DevShed (2007). Articles>Computing>Programming>JavaScript

Better JavaScript Minification

Although both CSS and JavaScript may be included within an HTML page, best practices encourage storing CSS and JavaScript in external files that can be downloaded and cached separately. Performance research asks: How can these external resources be downloaded and applied most efficiently? The first approach is to limit the number of external requests since the overhead of each HTTP request is high. The second approach? Make your code as small as possible.

Zakas, Nicholas C. List Apart, A (2010). Articles>Web Design>Usability>JavaScript

Building Mashups with JSONP, jQuery, and Yahoo! Query Language

In the previous article of this series, we introduced JSONP (JSON with Padding) as a way to overcome browser same-origin policy limitations while combining and presenting data from third-party sources. This article continues this process and shows you how to use Yahoo! Query Language (YQL), a JSONP service from Yahoo!, to build a mashup Web page using jQuery.

Özses, Seda and Salih Ergül. IBM (2009). Articles>Web Design>E Commerce>JavaScript

Choosing a JavaScript Framework

once you’ve decided that using a JavaScript framework is appropriate for the task you’re faced with, it can be hard to choose the one that is right for you. And to make things worse, what is right for you may not be right for your co-workers.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>JavaScript

Combine JSONP and jQuery to Quickly Build Powerful Mashups

With the number of publicly offered Web service APIs, it's now much easier to get content from different Web sources and to build mashups—if you have access to the right APIs and tools. Discover how you can combine an obscure cross-domain call technique (JSONP) and a flexible JavaScript library (jQuery) to build powerful mashups surprisingly quickly.

Özses, Seda and Salih Ergül. IBM (2009). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>JavaScript

Core JavaScript 1.5 Guide

Getting started with JavaScript is easy: all you need is a modern Web browser. This guide includes some JavaScript features which are only currently available in the latest versions of Firefox (and other Gecko powered browsers), so using the most recent version of Firefox is recommended.

Mozilla.org (2008). Articles>Web Design>Programming>JavaScript

Creating Modular Interactive User Interfaces with JavaScript

Discover a technique that lets you move sections of a Web page using drag-and-drop functions. Different aspects of the interactivity are implemented separately and then composed into a unified whole, allowing for flexible customization that can make your Web users very happy.

Travis, Greg. IBM (2008). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>JavaScript

Crossing Borders: JavaScript's Language Features

JavaScript is often ridiculed as the black sheep of programming languages. The development tools, a complicated and inconsistent document object model for HTML pages, and inconsistent implementation in browsers contributes to that sentiment. But JavaScript is much more than a toy. In this article, Bruce Tate explores JavaScript's language features.

Tate, Bruce. IBM (2006). Design>Web Design>DHTML>JavaScript

Curbing JavaScript Dependency

JavaScript can be used as an enhancement, but too often it ends up rendering a page unusable to people who don't run it. There are a number of good reasons why it might not be running in a given browser, and pages should never depend on it. MSG is a 'flavor enhancer,' with one slight problem -- some people are allergic to it. Most people don't seem to care much either way, but a small number of people seems to have bad reactions to it. If you ask people in the industry who sell it, they'll tell you it's quite safe, but there are others who claim that it's potentially lethal to some (very, very few) people.

Seebach, Peter. IBM (2001). Design>Web Design>Programming>JavaScript

ECMAScript for XML (E4X): A Simpler Programming Model

Developing software to create, navigate and manipulate XML data has become a significant part of almost every developer's job. Developers are inundated with a wide variety of data encoded in XML, including web pages, web services, deployment descriptors, configuration files, project make files and a variety of XML vocabularies for vertical industries (from purchase orders to target lists).

Schneider, John. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML>JavaScript

Exploring Footers

With old-school table layout methods, vertical positioning is a piece of cake. With CSS layout, it's a piece of something else. New ALA contributing writer Bobby van der Sluis shows how to regain control of footers and other vertically positioned layout elements via CSS, JavaScript, and the DOM.

van der Sluis, Bobby. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS>JavaScript

Extending The JavaScript Date Object with User Defined Methods

Applications, particularly business applications, can often require a lot of date manipulation, but that code could be simplified if JavaScript’s core Date object had some additional methods. In this article, I will show you how to add custom methods to the Date object that are inherited by each date instance.

O'Sullivan, Lawrence. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Programming>JavaScript

Heading Navigation Greasemonkey User Script

This is a Greasemonkey user script to enable heading navigation in Firefox. Headings can either be navigated by the heading level, for example, all h2 elements, or by any level.

Juicy Studio (2006). Design>Web Design>DHTML>JavaScript

Helpful Hyperlinks with JavaScript

There you are happily surfing a web site; you click a link and suddenly find yourself at another site being asked to download a file. What happened there? Annoying, isn’t it? There has to be a better way to indicate to your visitors where a link is going and to what type of file. So, to help solve this little annoyance, I’ve written a bit of JavaScript and CSS that adds pretty little icons after the links—depending on the file extension and location—to indicate to the user the type of document they’re about to load.

Somerville, Toby. SitePoint (2008). Articles>Web Design>Hypertext>JavaScript

How jQuery is Killing Flash

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and AJAX interactions for rapid web development. Although you may have enough Javascript skills to build your own Javascript code, using jQuery instead of can simplify the process (think hundreds of lines vs. a few lines of jQuery). Furthermore, there are thousands of plugins for jQuery published and large community support for this project. jQuery deserves being the heaviest competitor with Flash.

aext.net (2010). Articles>Web Design>Ajax>JavaScript

How to Create an Unobtrusive Print this Page Link With JavaScript

When a client requests that I duplicate functionality that should be (and is) handled by web browsers, I always try to avoid doing it by explaining why I believe it is better to leave such functionality to the browser. Most of the time I succed, but occasionally I don’t.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>JavaScript

How to Make a Smooth Animated Menu with jQuery

Ever seen some excellent jQuery navigation that left you wanting to make one of your own? Today we’ll aim to do just that by building a menu and animate it with some smooth effects.

Dunn, Zach. BuildInternet.com (2009). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>JavaScript

How to Validate Forms with JavaScript

Discover why and how you should use unobtrusive JavaScript to validate forms.

McCarthy, Paul. Webcredible (2007). Design>Web Design>DHTML>JavaScript

If I Told You You Had a Beautiful Figure...

Lay out images consistently across your site using a liitle clever JavaScript.

Gustafson, Aaron. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>JavaScript

The Importance of Maintainable JavaScript

JavaScript is hip again; there’s no doubt about it. But if you’re starting to get down and dirty with it, there’s no excuse not to keep it clean.

Heilmann, Christian. Vitamin (2008). Articles>Web Design>Programming>JavaScript