This Microsoft title is a definitive reference guide to developing applications that take advantage of the dynamic HTML (DHTML) features of Microsoft Internet Explorer 5. It is short on tutorial material but offers a very detailed programmer's reference to DHTML. However, readers should be familiar with Microsoft VBScript and JScript to make the most of it.
In the front of the book is an extremely brief 22-page overview of the benefits of DHTML. It covers the evolution of features through the releases of Internet Explorer and includes a table that illustrates the compatibility and features side by side. This section also points out the new IE5 features: DHTML behaviors, persistence, HTML Applications (HTAs), the ability to query client capabilities, and various other architectural features.
The meat of the book is the DHTML reference section. Here, DHTML objects, properties, events, methods, and collections are documented in separate sections. Short code examples accompany many of the entries, and the conventions closely follow other Microsoft documentation. Following this lengthy section is a reference to HTML Components, categorized into elements, events, methods, and objects. Appendices cover HTML Applications, tables, filters, and transitions.
A companion CD-ROM includes the complete IE5 Software Development Kit (SDK), code examples, technical articles, and a copy of IE5. If you're just starting out with DHTML, you should look elsewhere for a tutorial; if you're already coding it for IE5 and want horse's-mouth documentation, this is for you.
--Stephen W Plain
Customer Reviews & Comments
True, this is language reference manual and, as such, duplicates some of the on-line help that comes with the IE5 SDK (which is included on one of the two companion CD-ROMs). This book is not for learning DHTML but is a language reference defining all of the objects, properties, methods, events, and other useful information. As with any complicated language like VB6 or Java, the documentation is always available through the help system but I almost always reach for my language reference books first, before using on-line help. I also use language reference manuals to browse through a language just to get an idea of available commands I may have missed when learning the language. As a reference manual for DHTML, a powerful language at the heart of IE5, that has grown very extensive in scope, I recommend this book as a useful companion to the DHTML on-line help.
