Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Clear and Concise
Comment: DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith gives you a very smooth introduction to JavaScript and the DOM. The books is more directed at those who are just beginning JavaScript or have used it in the past but would like more knowledge.
The book itself flows well from chapter to chapter. The beginning chapters give you a foundation to work with during the rest of the book. Jeremy teaches basic constructs of JavaScript programming and how/where they can be used. If you are already a programmer (not necessarily JavaScript), this chapter will be a quick one. It is very informational, yet straight to the point. Once he gets the basics and best practice techniques out of the way - he dives into the DOM and gives several useful examples. This is where it gets good.
Before moving further, I should mention that his best practices are applied all throughout this book - and that includes creating useful and unobtrusive JavaScript. So, with each chapter - he shows the process and then brings it around full circle to an unobtrusive model. For instance, with the image gallery example, he shows that without JavaScript, this process would be useless - and we don't need extra markup on the pages that won't be used. He shows you, step by step (with great code highlighting and screenshots), how to build the image gallery on the fly. This way, if a user HAS JavaScript they can get the better experience. For those without, it degrades gracefully and doesn't add unnecessary code to the markup. This is just one example - but is used on all of his building blocks throughout the book.
There were many times in the book I would question what was being done (from an unobtrusive standards perspective). Each of those questions was immediately answered in the paragraphs or chapters to come. Jeremy does a great job to present the big picture, along with explaining why things were done certain ways. I read this book in two days, simply because it was hard to put down. The last chapters (aside from the reference), were the icing on the cake. This is where he puts all of the pieces together for a fictional website, JayScript and the Domsters. This chapter takes all of the pieces taught throughout the book and puts them in a practical environment. Go ahead, play with the fictional site. It has nice little touches, that, even when JavaScript is disabled has a nice user experience.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book if you are looking to get your hands dirty with JavaScript and DOM Scripting. The book was an easy read, packed with useful information. Just as with CSS Mastery, each chapter would build on the last - all the way until the end where it was all put together as a whole. Also, I am currently reading "DHTML Utopia", and this book was a great primer to JavaScript techniques. Thanks, Jeremy, for a great, concise, book on a topic that can sometimes scare people away.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: I found this book to be disappointing...
Comment: I ended up returning this book.
Basically I was looking for a book that gave me enough background and detail on both JavaScript and the Document Object Model to help me build mechanisms.
This book provides a good conceptual overview of how one can use JavaScript in combination with DOM to do things.
But it is a relatively small book, it has few examples, and no in-depth info on either JavaScript or DOM. And it has little useful information on the difference between how the various browsers deal with DOM.
I created a JavaScript/DOM mechanism that would change the fields presented in a webform depending on radio button selections at the top of the form. The mechanism worked fine in FireFox, Safari, and Opera but would not function in IE6. I eventually found a workaround but the book was no help.
If all you want is an overview of what you can do with JavaScript and DOM then this book is OK. If you really want help getting something built then you will need to get a different book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is a perfect reference book.
Comment: As you can see from most of the other reviews, this book is excellent. You need this book if you fit any of these categories:
1) you struggle with javascript
2) you insert style or script into your web pages
3) you struggle with when to use getElementById and nodeType
4) you are having difficulty with pages rendering differently in different browsers (IE, Firefox, Netscape, Apple, Opera, etc).
This book teaches you how to write a single script without having to worry about which version / brand of browser AND STILL BE ABLE TO USE HIGH LEVEL CODE.
Mr. Keith teaches you all of the basics of Javascript in one chapter. Yup, he's that good! This chapter is the gold standard on how to teach a language.
Finally, the author shows you how to separate content from style from behavior while maintaining progressive enhancement and backward-compatibility through graceful degradation. If you have trouble with understanding that, it is a good indication that you need this book (grin).
I liked this book so much I went out and bought additional copies for my colleagues because:
a) I didn't want to share my copy, and
b) I didn't want to have to explain to them the advantages of the demonstrated techniques.
I sincerely hope that this author writes more books because this is such a great book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great stuff with wll-blended theory and practical info
Comment: I've been itching to properly learn Javascript for a while and had been doing so with the Javascript Bible. That is one heavy book, although a bit out-dated now. I finally came across this book and boy am I glad I did. I've learnt more concepts about javascripting practices than any other book or resources I've referred to.
This book, in my opinion, is definitely for the non-scripter/programmer. So if you're 100% new to javascript, this may not be the best choice for your first book. However, if you've touched javascript for a while or have done some sort of programming or even actionscript in Flash, this will be quite an easy read.
It's totally opened my eyes to creating sites that are no longer tagged with "Oh, it's one of those javascript-only sites again that try to be oh-so-fancy but break in other browsers".
If you want to take on the power of javascript but also be a caring, friendly web designer, this is definitely a book you should check out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good work-Repetition and Form Validation lacking
Comment: This book is great because it totally ignores all the other Javascript programming books that came before it. What I mean is that this book focuses on using the DOM and Javascript to accomplish tasks rather than perpetuating the Netscape Navigator 4/Internet Explorer 5 Javascript development practices. (Of course, this is what it should do, considering the title of the book.)
Another reviewer referred to the repetition in the content. Personally I find this useful as it reinforces the earlier material. (A teacher once told me that she had to repeat things about eight times before the information really sank into her student's heads.)
The only two critical comments I have are:
1. I would have liked to see more information on using/validating forms.
2. The Javascript based image gallery application seems to be a bit of a stretch for me. (Personally I think this kind of thing is better served by a server-based solution.) A better example might have been an examination of a registration process for a software package's beta program.
Other than that, the book is very good. It shows the preferred "web standards" way of using Javascript and the DOM. It will challenge people new to scripting, but in a good way. Recommended .
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