Web Page Programming (Using HTML and JavaScript)

Chapter 5 Introduction to JavaScript

Javascript is a dynamic computer programming language. It is lightweight and

most commonly used as a part of web pages, whose implementations allow
client-side script to interact with the user and make dynamic pages. It is an
OBJECTIVES interpreted programming language with object-oriented capabilities.
JavaScript was first known as LiveScript, but Netscape changed its name to
➢ Learn what JavaScript is
JavaScript, possibly because of the excitement being generated by Java.
and what it can do
JavaScript made its first appearance in Netscape 2.0 in 1995 with the name
➢ Learn its features and LiveScript. The general-purpose core of the language has been embedded in
disadvantages Netscape, Internet Explorer, and other web browsers.

The language was developed by Brendan Eich of Netscape under the name Mocha, which was later renamed to LiveScript. The
change of the name from LiveScript to JavaScript, was roughly coincided with Netscape adding support for Java Technology in
its Netscape Navigator web browser. The language’s name is the result of a co-marketing deal between Netscape and Sun, in
exchange for Netscape bundling Sun’s Java runtime with their then-dominant browser. It was first introduced and deployed in
the Netscape borwser version 2.0B in December. Netscape submitted JavaScript to Ecma International for Standardization
resulting in the standardized version named ECMAScript.

JavaScript and Java are two completely different languages; however, both are influenced by the C language. The difference
between JavaScript and Java is that with JavaScript, common people that are not into programming find it easier to deal with.

The ECMA-262 Specification defined a standard version of the core JavaScript language.
-JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language.
-Designed for creating network-centric applications.
-Complementary to and integrated with Java.
-Complementary to and integrated with HTML.
-Open and cross-platform.

Client-Side JavaScript
Client-side JavaScript is the most common form of the language. The script should be included in or referenced by an HTML
document for the code to be interpreted by the browser.
It means that a web page need not be a static HTML, but can include programs that interact with the user, control the browser ,
and dynamically create HTML content.

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 Web Page Programming (Using HTML and JavaScript)

The JavaScript client-side mechanism provides many advantages over traditional CGI server-side scripts. For example, you might
use JavaScript to check if the user has entered a valid e-mail address in a form field.
The JavaScript code is executed when the user submits the form, and only if all the entries are valid, they would be submitted
to the Web Server.
JavaScript can be used to trap user-initiated events such as button clicks, link navigation, and other actions that the user initiates
explicitly or implicitly.

What Can JavaScript Do?

Some of the things that JavaScript can do are:
❖ JavaScript can react to event (mouse click, and pre-loading for webpage can lead to executing codes written in
JavaScript)
❖ JavaScript can be used to validate data (forms that requires user input, instead of using server-side scripting, it can be
used to validate and processing time)
❖ JavaScript can be used to create cookies (used to save or retrieved information from a visitor’s computer)
❖ JavaScript can enhance a web page (can be used to add items such as pop-up window box, animation or dynamic
images, menu from a drop down box)

Advantages of JavaScript
The merits of using JavaScript are:
❖ Less server interaction: You can validate user input before sending the page off to the server. This saves server tra ffic,
which means less load on your server.
❖ Immediate feedback to the visitors: They don't have to wait for a page reload to see if they have forgotten to enter
something.
❖ Increased interactivity: You can create interfaces that react when the user hovers over them with a mouse or activates
them via the keyboard.
❖ Richer interfaces: You can use JavaScript to include such items as drag-and-drop components and sliders to give a Rich
Interface to your site visitors.

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 Web Page Programming (Using HTML and JavaScript)

Limitations of JavaScript
We cannot treat JavaScript as a full-fledged programming language. It lacks the
following important features:
❖ Client-side JavaScript does not allow the reading or writing of files. This has been kept for security reason.
❖ JavaScript cannot be used for networking applications because there is no such support available.
❖ JavaScript doesn't have any multithreading or multiprocessor capabilities.
❖ Some browsers do not support JavaScript
❖ Any secret embedded in JavaScript could be extracted by a determined adversary
❖ JavaScript and DOM (Document Object Model) provide the potential for malicious authors to deliver scripts to run on
a client computer via the web
❖ Web site authors can not perfectly conceal how their JavaScript operates, because the code is sent to the client
❖ Source codes that has been deliberately made hard to understand can be reverse engineered so your codes are still
exposed to possible threats.

Once again, JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language that allows you to build interactivity into otherwise
static HTML pages.

JavaScript Development Tools

One of major strengths of JavaScript is that it does not require expensive development tools. You can start with a simple text
editor such as Notepad. Since it is an interpreted language inside the context of a web browser, you don't even need to buy a
compiler.
To make our life simpler, various vendors have come up with very nice JavaScript editing tools. Some of them are listed here:
❖ Microsoft FrontPage: Microsoft has developed a popular HTML editor called FrontPage. FrontPage also provides web
developers with a number of JavaScript tools to assist in the creation of interactive websites.
❖ Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is a very popular HTML and JavaScript editor in the
professional web development crowd. It provides several handy prebuilt JavaScript components, integrates well with
databases, and conforms to new standards such as XHTML and XML.
❖ Macromedia HomeSite 5: HomeSite 5 is a well-liked HTML and JavaScript editor from Macromedia that can be used to
manage personal websites effectively.

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Where is JavaScript Today

The ECMAScript Edition 5 standard will be the first update to be released in over four years. JavaScript 2.0 conforms to Edition
5 of the ECMAScript standard, and the difference between the two is extremely minor. The specification for JavaScript 2.0 can
be found on the following site: http://www.ecmascript.org/ Today, Netscape's JavaScript and Microsoft's JScript conform to the
ECMAScript standard, although both the languages still support the features that are not a part of the standard.

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JavaScript - Syntax

JavaScript can be implemented using JavaScript statements that are placed within the <script>... </script> HTML tags in a
web page, it connotes JavaScript..
You can place the <script> tags, containing your JavaScript, anywhere within you web page, but it is normally recommended
that you should keep it within the <head> tags.
The <script> tag alerts the browser program to start interpreting all the text between these tags as a script. A simple synta x
of your JavaScript will appear as follows.

<script ...>
JavaScript code
</script>

The script tag takes two important attributes:

❖ Language: This attribute specifies what scripting language you are using. Typically, its value will be javascript. Although
recent versions of HTML (and XHTML, its successor) have phased out the use of this attribute.
❖ Type: This attribute is what is now recommended to indicate the scripting language in use and its value should be set
to "text/javascript".
So your JavaScript syntax will look as follows.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

JavaScript code
</script>

Your First JavaScript Code

Let us take a sample example to print out "Hello World". We added an optional HTML comment that surrounds our JavaScript
code. This is to save our code from a browser that does not support JavaScript. The comment ends with a "// -->". Here "//"
signifies a comment in JavaScript, so we add that to prevent a browser from reading the end of the HTML comment as a
piece of JavaScript code. Next, we call a function document.write which writes a string into our HTML document.

This function can be used to write text, HTML, or both. Take a look at the following code.

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 Web Page Programming (Using HTML and JavaScript)

<html>
<body>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write ("Hello World!")
//-->
</script>
</body>
</html>

This code will produce the following result:

Hello World!

Whitespace and Line Breaks

JavaScript ignores spaces, tabs, and newlines that appear in JavaScript programs. You can use spaces, tabs, and newlines
freely in your program and you are free to format and indent your programs in a neat and consistent way that makes the
code easy to read and understand.

Semicolons are Optional

Simple statements in JavaScript are generally followed by a semicolon character, just as they are in C, C++, and Java.
JavaScript, however, allows you to omit this semicolon if each of your statements are placed on a separate line. For
example, the following code could be written without semicolons.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

<!--
var1 = 10
var2 = 20
//-->
</script>

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But when formatted in a single line as follows, you must use semicolons:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

<!--
var1 = 10; var2 = 20;
//-->
</script>

Note: It is a good programming practice to use semicolons.

Case Sensitivity
JavaScript is a case-sensitive language. This means that the language keywords, variables, function names, and any other
identifiers must always be typed with a consistent capitalization of letters.
So the identifiers Time and TIME will convey different meanings in JavaScript.
NOTE: Care should be taken while writing variable and function names in JavaScript.

Comments in JavaScript
JavaScript supports both C-style and C++-style comments. Thus:
-Any text between a // and the end of a line is treated as a comment and is ignored by JavaScript.
-Any text between the characters /* and */ is treated as a comment. This may span multiple lines.
-JavaScript also recognizes the HTML comment opening sequence <!--. JavaScript treats this as a single-line comment, just as
it does the // comment.
-The HTML comment closing sequence --> is not recognized by JavaScript so it should be written as //-->.

Example
The following example shows how to use comments in JavaScript.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

<!--
// This is a comment. It is similar to comments in C++
/*
* This is a multiline comment in JavaScript
* It is very similar to comments in C Programming
*/
//-->
</script>

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 Web Page Programming (Using HTML and JavaScript)

JavaScript - Enabling

All the modern browsers come with built-in support for JavaScript. Frequently, you may need to enable or disable this support
manually. This chapter explains the procedure of enabling and disabling JavaScript support in your browsers: Internet
Explorer, Firefox, chrome, and Opera.

JavaScript in Internet Explorer

Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Internet Explorer:
❖ Follow Tools -> Internet Options from the menu.
❖ Select Security tab from the dialog box.
❖ Click the Custom Level button.
❖ Scroll down till you find the Scripting option.
❖ Select Enable radio button under Active scripting.
❖ Finally click OK and come out.
To disable JavaScript support in your Internet Explorer, you need to select Disable radio button under Active scripting.

JavaScript in Firefox
Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Firefox:
❖ Open a new tab -> type about: config in the address bar.
❖ Then you will find the warning dialog. Select I’ll be careful, I promise!
❖ Then you will find the list of configure options in the browser.
❖ In the search bar, type JavaScript enabled.
❖ There you will find the option to enable or disable JavaScript by right-clicking on the value of that option -> select
toggle.
If JavaScript enabled is true; it converts to false upon clicking toggle. If JavaScript is disabled; it gets enabled upon clicking
toggle.

JavaScript in Chrome
Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Chrome:
-Click the Chrome menu at the top right hand corner of your browser.
-Select Settings.
-Click Show advanced settings at the end of the page.
-Under the Privacy section, click the Content settings button.
-In the "JavaScript" section, select "Do not allow any site to run JavaScript" or "Allow all sites to run JavaScript
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 Web Page Programming (Using HTML and JavaScript)

JavaScript in Opera
Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Opera:
-Follow Tools-> Preferences from the menu.
-Select Advanced option from the dialog box.
-Select Content from the listed items.
-Select Enable JavaScript checkbox.
-Finally click OK and come out.
To disable JavaScript support in Opera, you should not select the Enable
JavaScript checkbox

Warning for Non-JavaScript Browser

If you have to do something important using JavaScript, then you can display a warning message to the user using tags.
You can add a noscript block immediately after the script block as follows:

<html>
<body>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write ("Hello World!")
//-->
</script>
<noscript>
Sorry...JavaScript is needed to go ahead.
</noscript>
</body>
</html>

Now, if the user's browser does not support JavaScript or JavaScript is not enabled, then the message from </noscript> will
be displayed on the screen.

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