Preserved Topic: where's a good place to start?

i'm a newbie at the dhtml thing and would like to get into it. i've done a little research and reading up so i have a bare bone basic understanding (ie--DOMS, crossbrowser problems, javascript, css, layers). i want to try tackling something with it to get my feet wet, but i'm far from ready to dive into making webpages with it. where do you reckon i should start? this is neat stuff, i'm hungry to learn.

You say you're not ready to start making web pages yet. I'm going to assume you mean pages for the world to see and marvel at. The reason I say that is that starting to make pages that do "stuff" is exactly where I think you should start; especially if you've already been reading up on the subject.

So going on that assumption, I would start with a real basic goal. For example, tell yourself that you're going to position a div (or layer) in the upper left corner of a web page and place an image on it. Then your goal is to move that div from the upper left corner diagonally towards the lower right corner of your browser.

That's all you're going to set out to do. Now in the process of reaching this seemingly basic uninteresting goal, you're going to learn some very good things. You will also notice that once you understand how to make that happen, your mind is automatically going to start saying things like, "wouldn't it be great if I could move this thing in a circle, or better yet a...". I think you get the picture.

So follow on features could be:

1. adding links that move the div from one position to another.
2. showing and hiding the div at certain times.
3. changing the content of the div itself based on certain clicking of links.

Of course, the list just goes on and on once you get a couple of pages under your belt.

Let us know where you are at more specifically on this learning curve and maybe we can give you the jump starts you need. Checking out some of Doc's pages is awesome, I've got a dhtml tute over at the GurusNetwork, mr.maX has several great example pages, Slime does some sweet dhtml to check out, and others too of course. Just let us know.

that sounds like a good plan. i'll get started on my simple goals and keep you posted. thanks professor bugimus!