Preserved Topic: JavaScript in real world

As a freelancer the past 1.5 years, I have no experience working in the webdesign "office" world. My question relates to job descriptions involving JavaScript and what companies are actually looking for.

I asked this same question to someone once and the feedback I got was "JavaScript is really on used for form validation, rollovers, and browser detection." Is this true?

Thanks.
C R O 8

I consider myself a JavaScript wannabe, and I even use it for more than that!

Those are all good uses in a business context.

Another is getting around the limitation of <FORM</FORM> being a block-level element. (Meaning your browser wants line breaks around it.) We often want to tuck a submit button inline with other layout stuff, so we make it a generic button input that onClick will call formname.submit().

Up until now that's been a lot of JS's uses.

However with my work site when we redesigned in January we made a decision that JS is an integral part of the browser experience now. So we use it for a lot more than that.

We use it for making some drop downs. fit according to browser.
One of my favorite tricks is that we use it for submitting forms.

Without JS when someone submits a form you must go somewhere to submit the info. This was a bad user experience for something like a poll where there's only one answer. So using JS we popup a new window, pass the variables to the window and submit that, allowing the user to stay on the same page.

anyhoo my &cent;.02


Walking the Earth like Kane

thanks all. bitdamaged nice site.

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Hang on a minute, InI.

First, is that legitimate code, or something you're dreaming up?
Second, if you apply ActiveX controls, the rules change. You can do stuff outside the browser, for better or worse (mostly worse, it seems). You're right that IE's new implementation of DHTML, which includes the ability to generate code on the fly (hence modifying the page after it's been displayed) is tremendously powerful, and has compelling uses (I used it for the planetary locator). But don't muddy the waters by introducing ActiveX components.

What you can do in IE5.x:
munge your document in myriad ways after loading it.
What you can't do:
access the filesystem or other resources aoutside the browser window, with limited exceptions like print.

I still haven't really bothered to learn a lot of javascript, because it takes a significant amount of knowledge to program cross-browser scripts well. The client-side nature of it makes it undesirable in terms of mission-critical applications (even though theoretically it can do a lot).

Having made my disclaimer about why i don't know the JS I should, it is definitely one of the most important web technologies available. First there was HTML, which allows you to define your content, then CSS which allows you to design your pages, and finally javascript which allows you to make your pages interactive. These 3 languages are a well thought out solution to presenting almost any foreseeable web design.

Of course you still may need a backend data pipe of some sort, which thanks to Perl, MySQL and PHP is equally accessible for small websites with low budgets.

In short, the question was what is JS good for in the real world, and the answer is manipulating anything within the page on the client side to avoid unsightly page loading hassles.

-jiblet

No one's mentioned DHTML! You can completely change a web page around with JavaScript, make it dynamic. You can start with one page and change the entire thing into something that looks completely different with JavaScript.

Well I'd like to say that javascript is a 'language' of sorts which means you can make it do almost anything within a website. You can also write data to the users browser through cookies and stuff.

Slime: Been looking over your site these past couple of days and I must say it Kicks Ass! Did you adapt your DHTML windows from the DyanmicDuo sp? API?

Dynamic HTML is growing in popularity and I believe that will continue. It loads faster than Java applets and it runs faster on the client machine. It's capabilities are quite impressive and expanding. I have spent much of my time trying to find new and interesting things to do with DHTML. Yeah, sure most of them are just toys but much of what can be done has plenty of "real world" applicability.

I think the most prevalent usage of DHTML is going to be the popup menus. That seems to be a very useful application. Don't forget bubble help as well. You can popup help text as you place your cursor over certain buttons. I know there are plenty of other great practical uses but I'm sleepy and it's time to put the Bug to bed

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Heh, thanks, Dracusis. I coded the whole thing from scratch, I don't use APIs... in fact, I'm not even 100% sure what API stands for or means, but I don't use them! (heh) The only disadvantage is that it doesn't work in Netscape Navigator 4.x, but honestly, I don't care since it's just a personal site.

API = Application Programming Interface

Great. Ignorance is bliss, but now my ignorance is gone. Thanks a lot.

heh =)

Slime API's are basically code layers that give programmers a common ground to write code for. Say you write a function that will move a layer in all browsers. Then anyone who uses "slime's layer mover API" only have to write code once.

DirectX is an API so that people who code say games code their games to work with DirectX, then video card manufacturers write their drivers to work with Direct X. viola you have a middle ground so those game coders don't have to write for each card.

Simplified. explanation


Walking the Earth like Kane

Cool OK. I'll have to take a peek at you code some day... hehe.. But I think you said that you didn't mind people looking at you code on your site. Oh, and don't worry, I won't directly steal chunks of your code.

So, how did most of you learn all of the neat DHTML tricks and stuff?

Most of what I've learnt is from the tutorials at the old Dynamic Duo site by Dan Steinman. Although this doesn't cover IE5 and NS6, but it was a good starting place none the less. Then I moved onto the DHTML Nirvana Alchemy site after I saw Max post a link to it in one of these threds's not long after I first poped up here. (Thanks Max )

Well, I've had some programming experience from like Junior High with Visual Basic and a bit of C++, which probably helped me learn. I learned most of what I know about JavaScript from JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly). That includes a little bit of DHTML, like absolute positioning. The rest of DHTML that I know I think I learned from a combination of the sites of the people in this forum, the w3c (whose specifications i still can't completely read or understand), and my own explorations of the language (most of them made while I made my current front page).

This little bit of code came in extremely helpful:

var msg = '';
var obj = window;
for (prop in obj)
{
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;msg += prop + " = " + obj[prop] + "\n";
}
alert(msg);

With that code, you can get a list of properties and objects contained inside any object, and thereby "explore" the language. I learned a lot this way.

~CRTL-C~ Thanks heaps Slime! That one goes into my random_notes.txt untill I get some time to play...