Topics

Why Your Own Server?

• configure, make, make install: a good UNIX skill to have
• Your server runs as yourself: won't take down a server others rely on
• Different types of servers: development, testing, staging, deploy, educational

Dollar-Sign Functions (continued)

• "Prototyping" elements toggle
  • Use $(), $F(), or any utility.
  • This adds methods from Prototype library to basic JavaScript DOM elements.
• utilities toggle
  • $w('one two three') is an array ['one', 'two', 'three']
  • $A() converts arguments to an array (very magic!)
  • $H() converts arguments into a hash
  • $R(low, high) creates a range

JavaScript Object Literal Notation

• Uses: toggle
  • Hash-like/struct-like
  • OOP
• Syntax: toggle
  • JSON definition: { field1: value1, field2: value2, ... }
  • If valueI is a function, this refers to the current object.
  • Access field: variable.fieldI or variable.fieldI()
• JSON is based on this: use strings for fieldIs.

Navigating and Manipulating the DOM

• Using DOM functions toggle
  • Annoying API
  • Annoying iteration
  • Annoying nodes (including whitespace text nodes and comments!)
• Navigating with Prototype toggle
  • down('CSS selector', index)
  • next('CSS selector', index)
  • previous('CSS selector', index)
  • up('CSS selector', index)
  • all: arguments are optional in all combinations
• Manipulating with Prototype toggle
  • cleanWhitespace()
  • remove()
  • replace(HTML content) (replaces element)
  • update(HTML content) (replaces content of element)

Observing Events

• element.observe(eventName, observer) toggle
  • element a Prototyped DOM element
  • eventName a string naming the event
  • observer a function to be executed for the event toggle
    • function () { ... }
    • function (event) { ... }