HomePage for JavaScript

Client Side Scripting with JavaScript

Instructor:	Dale R. "Zai" Fox, Ph.D.
Office:
Office Hours:	4:00 - 4:50 PM Monday and Wednesday 5:30 - 6:20 PM Thursday or by appointment
Phone:	203.582.5206
E-mail:	zai.fox@esaighu.net
Text:	Thau, The Book of JavaScript: A Practical Guide to Interactive Web Pages, SAMS, 2000.
Recommended Reference:	*Flanagan, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, O'Reilly*
Evaluation:	Four homework assignments and two tests. The homework assignments will count for half of your grade. The tests will count for the other half of your grade. The grades within each of these segments will be equally weighted. This implies that each test will count for 25% of your overall grade. It also implies that each homework will count for 12.5% of your overall grade. As usual, homework that is turned in late within 24 hours after the due date will receive an automatic 5 point deduction. Homework that is late more than a day, but received within 3 days will receive an automatic 10 point deduction. Homework that is more than three days late but less than a week late will receive an automatic 15 point deduction. Any homework turned in more than a week late will receive an automatic 25 point deduction.
Background:	This course assumes you know how to develop a web using either HTML or some sort of WYSIWYG environment such as FrontPage, DreamWeaver or Go Live.
Description:	This course will focus on what can be done within script within a web page on the client's computer to improve the functionality and performance of web pages. We will focus on JavaScript, because it is most universal.
Required Software:	You need Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla in order to test your JavaScript and HTML. While developing script that works as desired in more than one type of browser can be a major challenge, it is very important. If at some time later in life you choose to become the mind numb love slave of some major corporation's web view it will be your choice. At present, we want to educate you to be able to work across platforms as much as reasonable. In addition, you want some sort of textpad, notepad program to help you develop your files. It will likely be nice if you have better basic functionality than what is available in NotePad, but even that would suffice. I will work in Macromedia/Allaire Homesite. You could also work in FrontPage. You are also going to need some sort of FTP software to load your webpages to the web. You can use CuteFTP which is available at Globalscape for around $40 or WS_FTP or SmartFTP are sometimes available for free. You should check out Downloads.com. Internet Explorer also has its own FTP capabilities built in. While you can work in more sophisticated ways, I will use FTP as the major approach for file transfer for several reasons.
Course Content:	The weekly topic coverage below lists out specific topics, but we will focus on the client side of web programming.

Weekly Topic Coverage

Week 1	Syllabus/Policies Some Background on JavaScript Using Variables The Alert and Prompt Built-In Functions The Date/Time Built-In Functions
Week 2	Browser - Navigator Properties and Functions Decision Statements and Some Page Redirection Homework 1
Week 3	Link Events Adjusting Images Using onClick Link Events Link and Image Rollovers Preloading and Swapability
Week 4	Window Methods and Properties Opening Windows Doing More With Windows
Week 5	User Defined Functions Passing and Returning Information with Functions A More Sophisticated Example
Week 6	Forms Events Related to Forms Getting Information from Forms Putting Information onto Forms A Quick Find Navigation Drop Down Menu Homework 2 Suggested Form Layouts
Week 7	While and For Loops Some Processing with Internal Built-In Arrays User Defined Arrays Associative Arrays
Week 8	Timing Events: Clocks and Counters Determining the Time Since and Time Remaining Timed Slide Shows Animations Homework 3 Suggested Form Layouts
Week 9	Frame Basics Frames and JavaScript Basics Image Swaps in Frames Image Swaps and Rollovers in Tables
Week 10	Form Validation and Required Inputs Some Background on String Operations Validating Social Security Numbers Validating E-Mail Addresses Search and Replace Homework 4
Week 11	Developing Look Ahead and Navigation Features in Webs Added Info During Rollover Some Basics on Image Maps Creating a Rollover Popup Menu System Using Image Maps
Week 12	Validating Credit Card Input
Week 13	Setting and Reading Cookies Setting a Cookie's Expiration
Week 14
Finals

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