Everyone who is the least bit familiar with the Internet eventually wants to represent him or herself there with a home page. But the common page-building programs like Netscape Composer or Microsoft Frontpage no longer suffice for creating anything more than a very mediocre home page. Anyone who wants to have a really cool home page must know a little more than the countless amateurs who are out there on the Internet. The easiest and best tool for creating a truly attractive and interactive home page is called JavaScript.

Download a PDF of the complete API documentation of Prototype.js, the sweet JavaScript framework for serious web developers.

Several things have been updated in this book. First, the text in general has been updated due to changes in the Internet and web development since the last edition. I have also dropped a few items that are outdated (such as hiding scripts from older browsers) and expanded coverage of topics like the Document Object Model. I think this book is even better than the last edition, and it is my hope it will help take your JavaScript to a new level.

This document describes the changes and new features for JavaScript in Navigator 4.0. These features will be included in the new JavaScript Guide at a later date. For additional information about JavaScript, see the “JavaScript Guide.” • “Feature Summary” provides a summary of the new and changed features. * indicates a change to an existing feature. • “Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Navigator” describes how write scripts for different versions of Navigator.

Baseline browsers for this section are NN2, WinIE3/J1, and MacIE3.01. An item with no notation is compatible back to that level, and is found in all new scriptable browsers since then. Notations indicate the browser and version in which the property, method, or event handler was introduced.

JavaScript is Netscape’s cross-platform, object-based scripting language for client and server applications. This book explains everything you need to know to begin using core and client-side JavaScript.

Deciding to add security to a web application is like deciding whether to wear clothes in the morning. Both decisions provide comfort and protection throughout the day, and in both cases the decisions are better made beforehand rather than later. Just look around and ask yourself, “How open do I really want to be with my neighbors?” Or, “How open do I really want them to be with me?”