Prototype and Scriptaculous in Action

542 Pages·2007·11.07 MB·English

by  Dave Crane

Prototype and Scriptaculous
in Action

Prototype and
Scriptaculous
in Action
DAVE CRANE
BEAR BIBEAULT
with TOM LOCKE
MANNING
Greenwich
(74° w. long.)
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©2007 Manning Publications. All rights reserved.
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Manning Publications Co. Copyeditor: Andy Carroll
Sound View Court 3B Typesetter: Gordan Salinovic
Greenwich, CT 06830 Cover designer: Leslie Haimes
ISBN 1-933988-03-7
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 11 10 09 08 07
To Vesta,
the goddess of tidy housekeeping,
and every coder’s best friend

brief contents
PART I GETTING STARTED ...........................................1
1 ■ Introducing Prototype and Scriptaculous 3
2 ■ Introducing QuickGallery 26
3 ■ Simplifying Ajax with Prototype 45
4 ■ Using Prototype’s Advanced Ajax Features 71
PART II SCRIPTACULOUS QUICKLY ............................95
5 ■ Scriptaculous Effects 97
6 ■ Scriptaculous Controls 140
7 ■ Scriptaculous Drag and Drop 204
PART III PROTOTYPE IN DEPTH ..............................249
8 ■ All About Objects 251
9 ■ Fun with Functions 277
10 ■ Arrays Made Easy 292
11 ■ Back to the Browser 325
vii
viii BRIEF CONTENTS
PART IV ADVANCED TOPICS ...................................357
12 ■ Prototype and Scriptaculous in Practice 359
13 ■ Prototype, Scriptaculous, and Rails 410
appendix A ■ HTTP Primer 443
appendix B ■ Measuring HTTP Traffic 458
appendix C ■ Installing and Running Tomcat 5.5 469
appendix D ■ Installing and Running PHP 477
appendix E ■ Porting Server-Side Techniques 489
contents
foreword xvii
preface xix
acknowledgments xxi
about this book xxiii
about the title xxviii
about the cover illustration xxix
PART 1 GETTING STARTED ........................................... 1
1 Introducing Prototype and Scriptaculous 3
1.1 A brief history of Ajax 4
Prehistory 5 The pioneer phase 6
■
The settlers arrive 6 Civilization 7
■
1.2 What is Prototype? 7
JavaScript language features 8 Web browser features 10
■
1.3 What is Scriptaculous? 11
Visual effects 11 Drag and drop 12
■
Components 12 Utilities and testing frameworks 13
■
ix