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Murach’s JavaScript and jQuery (4th Edition)

by Mary Delamater and Zak Ruvalcaba
19 chapters, 711 pages, 289 illustrations
Published September 2020
ISBN 978-1-943872-62-6
Print: $59.50
eBook: $54.50
Print + eBook: $72.00

Today, JavaScript is used on most of the pages of a modern website, from small individual sites to the largest commercial sites. And wherever JavaScript is used, you’ll often find jQuery, a classic JavaScript library. That’s why every web developer should know how to use JavaScript for what it does best and jQuery for what it does best. Now, this one book will help you master all of the JavaScript and jQuery skills that every web developer should have.

College Instructors

Go to our instructor’s site to learn more about this book and its instructor’s materials.

If you are new to web design or an old pro like me, this book is a must-have in my opinion. I love how it starts out with the basics and then moves on to the good stuff. Each chapter is full of examples and sample code showing you how to do the most common techniques that you will face as a web developer or designer. I have not seen a better book on the subject."

Web Developer, Colorado

  • About this Book
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What this book does

To present the JavaScript and jQuery skills that you need in a manageable progression, this book is divided into four sections. These sections represent the levels of expertise that you’ll develop with this book.

Section 1: JavaScript essentials

Section 1 presents a 7-chapter course in JavaScript that gets you off to a great start. This section works for programming novices as well as experienced programmers because it lets you set your own pace. Once you finish it, you’ll be able to develop, test, and debug JavaScript applications. And you’ll have a solid set of skills for getting the most from jQuery.

Section 2: jQuery essentials

Once you know the JavaScript essentials, the 4 chapters in section 2 present the jQuery skills that you’re most likely to use. The first chapter in this section presents the core jQuery skills. Then, the next 3 chapters focus on effects and animations, forms and data validation, jQuery plugins, and jQuery UI widgets.

Section 3: Advanced JavaScript skills

After you finish sections 1 and 2, you’ll have the basic JavaScript and jQuery skills that every web developer should have. Then, the 5 chapters in section 3 will build out your skills, so you can handle more demanding tasks. Here, then, you’ll learn more about how to use numbers, strings, and dates...how to handle exceptions and use regular expressions...when and how to use browser objects, cookies, and web storage…how to work with arrays and maps...and how to create and use your own objects.

Section 4: Take it to the next level

The 3 chapters in section 4 will raise your JavaScript skills to a new level of expertise. Here, you’ll learn more about working with closures, the module pattern, and ES modules so you can safely share your code with other programmers. You’ll learn how to use Ajax with the Fetch API and Promise objects to asynchronously update a web page with data from a web server. And you’ll get introduced to doing server-side scripting in JavaScript by using Node.js.

Why you'll learn faster and better with this book

Like all our books, this one has features that you won’t find in competing books. That’s why we believe you’ll learn faster and better with our book than with any other. Here are a few of those features:

  • This book is designed to teach you the skills you’re going to need on the job without wasting your time on skills that you aren’t likely to need. That sounds simple, but most JavaScript and jQuery books either overwhelm you with information that you’ll never use or trivialize the subject by avoiding all of the complications. In contrast, this book presents even the most complex features in a manageable way, to give you the skills and confidence you need to work on your own.
  • If you page through this book, you’ll see that all of the information is presented in “paired pages,” with the essential syntax, guidelines, and examples on the right page and the perspective and extra explanation on the left page. This helps you learn faster by reading less...and this is the ideal reference format when you need to refresh your memory about how to do something.
  • To show you how JavaScript and jQuery work, this book presents dozens of complete applications that range from the simple to the complex. We believe that studying the code for complete applications is critical to the learning process... and yet you won’t find programs like ours in other JavaScript and jQuery books.
  • Of course, this book also presents dozens of short examples, so it’s easy to find an example that shows you how to do what you want to do. Even better, our paired pages make it much easier to find the examples that you’re looking for than it is with traditional books in which the examples are embedded in the text.
  • Like all our books, this one has exercises at the end of each chapter that give you hands-on experience by letting you practice what you’ve learned. These exercises also encourage you to experiment and to apply what you’ve learned in new ways…just as you’ll have to do on the job.

What's NEW in this edition

  • All chapters have been thoroughly updated to use modern ECMAScript and today’s best coding practices. For example, you’ll find:
    • Use of the let and const keywords instead of the var keyword wherever that improves the code
    • Use of arrow functions instead of function expressions for more concise code that also gets rid of the confusing and error-prone this keyword
  • New coverage of the popular Visual Studio Code text editor
  • New coverage of sets and maps
  • New coverage of using classes to create JavaScript objects
  • New coverage of ES modules
  • A new chapter on using Ajax with the Fetch API and Promise objects
  • A new chapter that shows how Node.js allows you to use JavaScript for server-side scripting

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who needs to know how to develop JavaScript applications and benefit from jQuery. Today, that includes all web developers who are in either of these groups:

  • Web designers who use HTML and CSS and would like to know how to enhance their web pages with JavaScript…no previous programming experience required
  • Server-side programmers who use languages like Python, PHP, JSP, or ASP.NET and would like to use JavaScript to provide client-side scripting for their web applications

What software you need

To develop JavaScript applications, you need:

  • A text editor: This book recommends Visual Studio Code because it’s free and provides many excellent features for developing JavaScript applications.
  • A modern web browser: This book recommends Google Chrome because it provides excellent developer tools for debugging JavaScript applications.

To help you install these products, Appendix A provides the procedures that you’ll need for Windows, and Appendix B provides the macOS procedures. In addition, chapter 1 presents a short tutorial on using Visual Studio Code, and chapter 5 shows you how to use Chrome for debugging.

Related books

Murach’s HTML and CSS

Our HTML and CSS book is the perfect companion to our JavaScript and jQuery book because it shows how to build web pages with HTML and CSS. When you combine this book with our JavaScript and jQuery book, you’ll have a complete reference set for building web pages.

Modern JavaScript

Our Modern JavaScript book is similar to JavaScript and jQuery in many ways, but it shows how to use JavaScript to provide the functionality for your web pages without using the jQuery library.

What people said about the first edition

“If you are new to web design or an old pro like me, this book is a must-have in my opinion. I love how it starts out with the basics and then moves on to the good stuff. Each chapter is full of examples and sample code showing you how to do the most common techniques that you will face as a web developer/designer.
     “I have not seen a better book on the subject. This one will be on my desk for a while!”
- Web Developer, Colorado

“I just finished a pretty heavy application project, the first serious work I have done with jQuery and Ajax. Along the way, I had to deal with preloading images, manipulations of the DOM, tabs, plugins, and Dialogs…. I kept this book at my side throughout the entire project, and it was indispensable. The answers were right there at every turn. All the examples made sense to me, and they all worked!”
- Alan Vogt, ETL Consultant, Information Builders, Inc.

“What I like about this and other Murach books is that within minutes of opening the book, you are developing hands-on with the technology in question.”
- Charles Zimmerman, Developer

“An essential characteristic of this book, as well as the other Murach books, is that the examples, programs, and applications are all thoroughly tested. This book will work WONDERFULLY to help you build better and more robust websites!”
- Marvin Schneider, Instructor, New York

“I have several books on JavaScript, but the best one is this one. The text, examples, descriptions, and even the layout all bring you, the learner, an ease of use that is missing in other books.”
- Chris Wallace, Denver Visual Studio User Group

View the table of contents for this book in a PDF: Table of Contents (PDF)

Click on any chapter title below to display or hide its content.

Section 1 JavaScript essentials

Chapter 1 Introduction to web development

How a web application works

The components of a web application

How static web pages are processed

How dynamic web pages are processed

How JavaScript is used for client-side processing

How the ECMAScript specification works

The version history of ECMAScript

Browser support for ECMAScript

The components of a JavaScript application

The HTML

The CSS

The JavaScript

The HTML skills that you need for this book

How to use the HTML5 semantic elements

How to use the div and span elements

How to use the basic HTML attributes

The CSS skills that you need for this book

How to provide the CSS styles for an HTML page

How to code the basic CSS selectors

How to code CSS style rules

How to test a JavaScript application

How to run a JavaScript application

How to find errors in your code

How to use Visual Studio Code to develop JavaScript applications

How to work with folders

How to work with files

How to edit a JavaScript file

How to install the Open in Browser extension

How to open an HTML file in a browser

Chapter 2 Get started fast with JavaScript

How to include JavaScript in an HTML document

How to use the script element

How to use the noscript element

The JavaScript syntax

How to code JavaScript statements

How to create identifiers

How to use comments

How to work with data

The primitive data types

How to declare and initialize variables and constants

How JavaScript handles variables and constants

How to work with expressions

How to code arithmetic expressions

How to use arithmetic expressions in assignment statements

How to concatenate strings

How to include special characters in strings

How to use objects, methods, and properties

Introduction to objects, methods, and properties

How to use the parseInt() and parseFloat() methods of the window object

How to use the write() method of the document object

How to use the toFixed() method of a Number object

Two illustrative applications

The Miles Per Gallon application

The Test Scores application

Chapter 3 The essential JavaScript statements

How to code conditional expressions

How to use the relational operators

How to use the logical operators

How to code the basic control statements

How to code if statements

How to code while and do-while loops

How to code for loops

Three illustrative applications

The enhanced Miles Per Gallon application

The Future Value application

The enhanced Test Scores application

How to work with arrays

How to create and use arrays

How to use for loops to work with arrays

How to use for-in and for-of loops to work with arrays

The Test Scores application with an array

The user interface

The JavaScript

Chapter 4 How to work with JavaScript objects, functions, and events

How to use objects to work with data

An introduction to JavaScript objects

How to use the window object

How to use the document object

How to use Textbox and Number objects

How to use Date and String objects

How to use functions

How to create and call a function declaration

How to create and call a function expression

How to create and call an arrow function

How to work with global, local, and block scope

How to handle events

How to attach an event handler to an event

How to use anonymous functions with event handlers

How to work with the Event object

Two illustrative applications

The Miles Per Gallon application

The Email List application

Chapter 5 How to test and debug a JavaScript application

An introduction to testing and debugging

The three types of errors that can occur

Common JavaScript errors

How to plan the test runs

How to debug with Chrome’s developer tools

How to use Chrome to find errors

How to use breakpoints and step through your code

Other debugging methods

How to trace the execution of your JavaScript code

More methods for tracing execution

How to view the HTML and CSS for a web page

Chapter 6 How to script the DOM with JavaScript

DOM scripting properties and methods

DOM scripting concepts

The properties of the Node interface

The methods of the Document and Element interfaces

The properties of the DOM HTML specification

The classList property of the Element interface

The FAQs application

The HTML

The CSS

The JavaScript

How to script forms and controls

How forms work

How to script Textbox, Textarea, and Select objects

How to script Radio and Checkbox objects

How to use the methods and events for forms and controls

The Register application

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to modify the DOM

How to create, add, replace, and delete nodes

The updated Register application

Chapter 7 How to work with images and timers

How to work with images

How to create an HTMLImageElement object

How to preload images

The Image Swap application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

How to use timers

How to use a one-time timer

How to use an interval timer

The Slide Show application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

Section 2 jQuery essentials

Chapter 8 Get off to a fast start with jQuery

Introduction to jQuery

What jQuery is

How jQuery can simplify JavaScript development

The basics of jQuery

How to include jQuery in your web pages

How to code jQuery selectors

How to call jQuery methods

How to use jQuery event methods

The Email List application

The user interface and HTML

The JavaScript and jQuery

More skills for working with jQuery

The most useful selectors

The most useful methods

The most useful event methods

Other event methods that you should be aware of

Three illustrative applications

The FAQs application

The Image Swap application

The Image Rollover application

Chapter 9 How to use effects and animations

How to use effects

The jQuery methods for effects

The FAQs application with jQuery effects

A Slide Show application with effects

The user interface, HTML, and CSS

Two ways to code the jQuery

How to stop and start a slide show

How to use animation

How to use the basic syntax of the animate() method

How to chain animate() methods

How to use the delay(), stop(), and finish() methods

How to use easings with effects and animations

How to use the advanced animate syntax and the methods for working with queues

A Carousel application with animation

The user interface, HTML, and CSS

The JavaScript and jQuery

Chapter 10 How to work with forms and data validation

Introduction to forms and controls

How forms work

The HTML5 controls for working with forms

The HTML5 and CSS3 features for data validation

How to use jQuery to work with forms

The jQuery selectors and methods for forms

The jQuery event methods for forms

A Validation application

The user interface and HTML

The JavaScript and jQuery

Chapter 11 How to use jQuery plugins and UI widgets

Introduction to jQuery plugins

How to find jQuery plugins

How to use any jQuery plugin

How to use three of the most popular plugins

How to use the Lightbox plugin for images

How to use the bxSlider plugin for carousels

How to use the Cycle 2 plugin for slide shows

Introduction to jQuery UI

What jQuery UI is and where to get it

How to download jQuery UI

How to include jQuery UI in your web pages

How to use any jQuery UI widget

How to use five of the most popular jQuery UI widgets

How to use the Accordion widget

How to use the Tabs widget

How to use the Button and Dialog widgets

How to use the Datepicker widget

Section 3 Advanced JavaScript skills

Chapter 12 How to work with numbers, strings, and dates

How to work with numbers

How to use the properties of the Number object

How to use the methods of the Number object

How to use the properties and methods of the Math object

How to generate a random number

The PIG application

The CSS

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to work with strings

How to use the properties and methods of the String object

More methods of the String object

How to create an array from a string

How to work with dates and times

How to create Date objects

How to use the methods of the Date object

Examples of working with dates

The Count Down application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

The Internationalization API

How to format numbers

How to format dates

Chapter 13 How to work with control structures, exceptions, and regular expressions

What else you need to know about control structures

How to use the equality and identity operators

How to use the break and continue statements

How to use the switch statement

How to use the conditional operator

How to use non-Boolean values in conditions

Additional techniques for using the logical operators

The Invoice application

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to handle exceptions

How to use try-catch statements

How to create and throw Error objects

How to use regular expressions

How to create and use regular expressions

How to match special characters and types of characters

How to match string positions, subpatterns, and repeating patterns

Regular expressions for data validation

The Account Profile application

The HTML

The JavaScript

Chapter 14 How to work with browser objects, cookies, and web storage

How to script browser objects

How to use the location object

How to use the history object

The Tutorial application

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to use cookies

An introduction to cookies

How to create cookies

How to read cookies

How to delete cookies

The Task List application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

How to use web storage

How to use local and session storage

The Task List application with web storage

How to use Chrome with cookies and web storage

How to work with cookies

How to work with web storage

Chapter 15 How to work with arrays, sets, and maps

How to create and use an array

How to create an array

How to add and delete array elements

How to use for, for-in, and for-of loops with arrays

How to destructure an array

How to use the methods of the Array type

Methods that add, modify, remove, and copy elements

Methods that inspect an array or its elements

Methods that transform the elements

The Test Scores application

The HTML

The JavaScript

More skills for working with arrays

How to split a string into an array

How to make a copy of an array

How to create and use an associative array

How to create and use an array of arrays

How to convert an array to JSON and back

The Task List application

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to work with sets and maps

How to create and use a set

How to create and use a map

Chapter 16 How to work with objects

Basic skills for working with objects

How to create object literals

More skills for coding methods and properties

How to extend or modify an object

How to work with accessor properties

How to create and use JavaScript libraries

The Miles Per Gallon application

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to work with classes

How to use a class to define an object type

How to use inheritance

When to use inheritance

When to use object composition

The Trips application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

How to work with prototypes

An introduction to prototypes

Legacy code for creating objects

More skills for working with objects

How to use a symbol as a computed property or method name

How to work with iterators

How to work with generator functions

How to create cascading methods

How to destructure an object

An introduction to the static methods of the Object type

The Task List application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

Section 4 Take it to the next level

Chapter 17 How to work with functions, closures, and modules

Basic skills for working with functions

How to create a function

How to work with default parameters

How to use the rest and spread operators

How to work with the this keyword

The Test Scores application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

How to work with closures

An introduction to closures

How to use closures to create private state

How to work with the this keyword in closures

The Slide Show application

The HTML

The JavaScript

How to work with the module pattern

How to code an IIFE

How to use the module pattern and namespaces

How to work with ES modules

How to import and export module items

How to declare a script as a module

More skills for working with modules

The Slide Show 2.0 application

The HTML

The JavaScript

Chapter 18 How to work with Ajax

Introduction to Ajax

How Ajax works

Two common data formats for Ajax

The JSON Placeholder API

How to make a single Ajax request

How to use the XMLHttpRequest object

How to use the Fetch API

The Astronomy Picture Of the Day application

The HTML and CSS

The NASA APOD API

The JavaScript

How to make multiple Ajax requests

The XMLHttpRequest object and “callback hell”

How the Fetch API solves “callback hell”

How to use named callback functions

How to handle errors

The Photo Viewer application

The HTML and CSS

The JavaScript

More skills for working with promises

How to create and use your own Promise objects

Static methods of the Promise type

How to use the async and await keywords

How to work with for-await-of loops

The updated JavaScript for the Photo Viewer application

How to make cross-origin requests

An introduction to Cross Origin Resource Sharing

How to handle CORS issues with APIs

Chapter 19 How to work with Node.js

An introduction to Node.js

When to use Node.js

How to install Node.js

How to use the node command

How to interactively test code

How to run a script

How to pass arguments to a script

How to work with Node.js modules

An introduction to modules

How to use the built-in file system module

How to use the built-in file system module with promises

How to create and use your own module

How to use NPM to install modules

An introduction to NPM

How to install and use the http-server module

How package.json files work

Resources

Appendix A How to set up Windows for this book

How to install the source code for this book

How to install Chrome

How to install Visual Studio Code

Appendix B How to set up macOS for this book

How to install the source code for this book

How to install Chrome

How to install Visual Studio Code

Sample chapter

To get a better idea of how well this book works, you can download a chapter in PDF format. As you will see, the approach in this book works for programming novices as well as for experienced programmers.

Chapter 2: Getting started with JavaScript

This chapter uses two simple JavaScript applications to introduce you to the syntax and characteristics of the language.

It’s designed to work for programming novices, so it starts your JavaScript training slowly. If you have programming experience, though, you’ll see how our paired-pages design and how-to headings allow you to speed through material you already know…and focus on features that are new to you.

And no matter how much programming experience you have, you’ll see how the chapter exercises let you practice what you’ve learned in interesting ways.

Chapter 2 PDF  Download Now

Book applications and exercises

This download includes:

  • The source code for the applications that are in the book
  • The starting source code for the exercises in the book
  • The solutions to the exercises in the book

Appendixes A and B in the book shows how to install and use these files on Windows and macOS.

Exe file for Windows Download Now

Zip file for any system Download Now

To view the "Frequently Asked Questions" for this book in a PDF, just click on this link: View the questions

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