The book concisely packs together the syntax of the scripting language, including summaries of expression and statement style. The real meat of the tiny title is an alphabetical listing of JavaScript objects, along with their associated methods, properties and events. One nice feature of this section is the attention to the varying support between Microsoft and Netscape browser versions. However, this listing is useful only if you know what object you want to work with. Missing from the reference is a solutions-based reference to let you refresh your memory about how to do a particular task, such as validate a form field or roll over a graphic when the user moves the mouse.

One drawback is the book's illustration of the object model--done only in a small diagram. This is a bit of a shame since this is one of the key topics most developers need help with. If you are rather familiar with JavaScript, this pocket reference will be helpful. New coders, however, will likely find it insufficient. --Stephen W. Plain

For any web page desigenr this will soon become a well-thumbed book!

When reading the negative comments on this page, note that this is not a book to learn from... (Try *Javascript Bible*) ...neither is it one to teach an experinced Javascript programmer new tricks. This is reference only (note that O'Reilly's Dfinitive Guide is a reference book that will also teach you new things and it perhaps what those disapointed with this book should have turned to first.


Poor in comparison to other books from the same family.   September 19, 2001
 2 out of 8 found this review helpful

I bought this book to add to my collection of these excellent books. I've got the PHP one, VBScript one (which is REALLY good) and Perl one (also really good) and they're all great, but this one doesn't have a proper alphabetical index and the typeface is too big (compare it to the VBScript one) so you're always flicking between pages. It's not really very useful. Although it's a reference, some code examples and better written explanations wouldn't go amiss...


Truly excellent find   April 23, 2001
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This small, inexpensive volume is a must-have for the Javascript code writer.

Excellent, brief-yet-detailed summaries of key functions and principles.

A "Pocket Bible" - for Webmasters and every genre of applet writer - incredibly well presented - a remarkable achievement in such a small volume. Along with its HTML cousin, a permanent resident in the side pouch of my notebook's shouldercase.


100% useless since it's missing common descriptions   April 16, 2001
 8 out of 11 found this review helpful

I have had a lot of things I "just wanted to look up" regarding to some not-that-special JavaScript calls and every time I looked it up in this book, I *never* found was I was looking for. Let's take an example of the standard 'window.open()' method call. I didn't remember the exact parameters to use thus I looked it up in the book. I found this: "window.open(url, name, features, replace)" which, first of all is an obsolute call in most browsers and second of all doesn't even tell you what you really need. E.g. I wanted to find out, what the 'features' parameter was able to take (e.g. the 'toolbar,width,statusbar, etc attributes). This was not described ANYWERE.

I think I have given this book a fair chance .. but every time I hoped to find something in the book, I had to look it up at developer.netscape.com anyway!

This book is NOT recommended unless you need something to fill up in your trashcan .. as mine is doing right now.


Badly in need of an update   January 2, 2001
 10 out of 13 found this review helpful

I bought this book to supplement the SAMS Teach Yourself Javascript in 24 Hours, which has no comprehesive reference section or appendix.

The Pocket Reference provides all one would hope for in terms of a description of syntax, variables, types, etc. The alphabetically sorted Object Reference is careful to describe the versions of Javascript that support the objects, and any Netscape and Microsoft specific limitations or extensions.

I feel though that the book suffers from its page size. The narrow page width forces an indented pargraph style rather than a tabular format. This makes properties and their descriptions hard to find, and the descriptions of some objects therefore spread over several pages which makes navigation of the book difficult.

The greatest weakness of the book though is its age. At over 2 years, there have been two versions of Javascript released, and major upgrades to Netscape and Internet Explorer since the book was last updated.