Dojo offers Web developers and designers a powerful JavaScript toolkit for rapidly developing robust Ajax applications. Now, for the first time, there’s a complete, example-rich developer’s guide to Dojo and its growing library of prepackaged widgets. Reviewed and endorsed by the Dojo Foundation, the creators of Dojo, this book brings together all the hands-on guidance and tested code samples you need to succeed.   Expert Web developer James E. Harmon begins by demonstrating how to “Ajax-ify” existing applications and pages with Dojo, adding Ajax features such as client- and server-side validation as quickly and nondisruptively as possible. Next, he presents in-depth coverage of Dojo’s user interface, form, layout, and specialized Widgets, showing how they work and how to use them most effectively. Among the Widgets, he covers in detail: Date Pickers, Rich Text Editors, Combo Boxes, Expandable Outlines, and many others.   In conclusion, Harmon introduces the Dojo toolkit’s powerful capabilities for simplifying Ajax development. He thoroughly explains Dojo’s helper functions, shortcuts, and special methods, illuminating each feature with examples of the JavaScript problems it can solve. This section’s far-ranging coverage includes strings, JSON support, event handling, Ajax remoting, Dojo and the DOM, testing, debugging, and much more. All source code examples are provided on a companion Web site, including source code for a complete tutorial case study application.

Table of Contents:
Foreword xiii Acknowledgments xv About the Author xvi   I: A Dojo Tutorial     1 Understanding Dojo: A Tutorial 3         1.1 Introduction to the Tutorial 3             1.1.1 Goals for this Tutorial 4             1.1.2 Goals for Using Dojo 4         1.2 A Standard HTML Data Entry Form 5             1.2.1 First and Last Name 6             1.2.2 User Name 7             1.2.3 Email Address 8             1.2.4 Address 8             1.2.5 State 8             1.2.6 City 10             1.2.7 Zip Code 10             1.2.8 Service Date 11             1.2.9 Comments 11         1.3 The Plan for Enhancing the Form 12             1.3.1 Including Dojo in the Form 12             1.3.2 Adding Client-side Validation 13             1.3.3 Adding Server-side Features 13             1.3.4 Using Additional Specialized Dojo Widgets 13             1.3.5 Processing the Form 14         1.4 Getting and Running the Source Code 14         1.5 Tutorial Step 1–Including Dojo 15             1.5.1 Download or Create the Source Files 15             1.5.2 Include the Code for the Dojo Toolkit 19             1.5.3 Include Dojo Style Sheets 20             1.5.4 Review All the Code Changes 21             1.5.5 Run the New Page 22     2 Using Dojo for Client-side Validation 25         2.1 Validating Form Fields 25         2.2 Tutorial Step 2–Adding Client-side Validation 26             2.2.1 Validate the First Name Field 27             2.2.2 Validating the Last Name Field 30             2.2.3 Validating the User Name Field 31             2.2.4 Validating the Email Address Field 31             2.2.5 Validating the Address Field 32             2.2.6 Validating the City Field 33             2.2.7 Validating the Zip Code Field 33     3 Using Dojo to Work with the Server 35         3.1 Adding Server-side Features 35         3.2 Tutorial Step 3a–Adding Server-side Validation 36             3.2.1 Assign Event Handler Function 36             3.2.2 Make a Call to the Server 38         3.3 Tutorial Step 3b–Retrieving Data from the Server 43             3.3.1 Select Appropriate Widget for the City Field 43             3.3.2 Get the Value of State and Send to the Server 45     4 Using Dojo Widgets 51         4.1 Adding Dojo Widgets to the Page 51             4.1.1 Dijit–The Dojo Widget Module 52         4.2 Tutorial Step 4–Using Dojo Widgets 52             4.2.1 Use the Dojo DateTextBox Widget 53             4.2.2 Use the Dojo Rich Text Editor Widget 55     5 Processing Forms with Dojo 59         5.1 Using Dojo to Process Forms 59         5.2 Tutorial Step 5–Processing the Form 60             5.2.1 Creating a Dojo Form Widget 60             5.2.2 Intercept Form Submission 61             5.2.3 Check That All Form Elements Are Valid 62             5.2.4 Submitting the Form to the Server 63   II: Dojo Widgets     6 Introduction to Dojo Widgets 67         6.1 What Are Widgets? 67         6.2 What Are Dojo Widgets? 68         6.3 Components of a Dojo Widget 70             6.3.1 Widget HTML 70             6.3.2 Widget Styles 74             6.3.3 JavaScript Component of a Widget 76             6.3.4 Dojo Widget Hierarchy 78             6.3.5 Visual Overview of Dojo Widgets 83             6.3.6 Building Your Own Widgets 90     7 Dojo Form Widgets 91         7.1 Standard Forms and Dojo Form Widgets 91             7.1.1 The dijit.form._FormWidget Class 92         7.2 The Dojo Form Widget Explained 94     8 Dojo Layout Widgets 137         8.1 Understanding Page Layout 137             8.1.1 The dijit.layout._LayoutWidget Class 138         8.2 Explanation of Dojo Layout Widgets 139     9 Other Specialized Dojo Widgets 155         9.1 What Are Specialized Widgets? 155         9.2 Menu Widget 156             9.2.1 dijit.Menu 157             9.2.2 dijit.MenuItem 157             9.2.3 dijit.MenuSeparator 157             9.2.4 dijit.PopupMenuItem 158   III: Dojo in Detail     10 What Is Dojo? 189         10.1 History of JavaScript and AJAX 189         10.2 History of Dojo 191         10.3 Purpose of Dojo 191         10.4 Description of Dojo 192         10.5 What Problems Does Dojo Solve? 193         10.6 Who Should Use Dojo? 194         10.7 Licensing 195         10.8 Competitors and Alternatives 195         10.9 The Future of Dojo 197     11 Technical Description of Dojo 199         11.1 What You Get in the Dojo Download 199         11.2 Organization of Dojo Source Code 201             11.2.1 First-level Directories 201             11.2.2 Digging Deeper into the Dojo Directory 202         11.3 Dojo Modules and Features 203             11.3.1 Naming Conventions and Name Space 204             11.3.2 Dojo Base Module 205             11.3.3 Dojo Core Modules 217     12 Objects and Classes 223         12.1 Objects Explained 223             12.1.1 Creating Objects 224             12.1.2 Encapsulation 224             12.1.3 Object Templates 225             12.1.4 JavaScript Prototypes 227         12.2 Using Dojo to Work with Objects 228             12.2.1 Dojo Function: dojo.declare 229         12.3 Defining a Class 229             12.3.1 Superclasses and Inheritance 231             12.3.2 API for dojo.declare 231             12.3.3 Other Dojo Functions 233             12.3.4 Object Graphs and Dot Notation 234     13 Strings and JSON 239         13.1 Text Strings 239             13.1.1 Dojo Function: dojo.string.pad 240             13.1.2 Usage Example for dojo.string.pad 241             13.1.3 Dojo Function: dojo.string.substitute 241             13.1.4 Usage Example for dojo.string.substitute 243         13.2 JSON 244             13.2.1 Dojo Function: dojo.toJson 246             13.2.2 Usage Example for dojo.toJson 246             13.2.3 Dojo Function: dojo.fromJson 247     14 Events and Event Handling 249         14.1 Description of the Event Model 249             14.1.1 What Are Events? 250             14.1.2 Additional Dojo Events 251         14.2 Defining and Assigning Event Handlers 252             14.2.1 Using dojo.connect to Assign Event Handlers 252             14.2.2 Usage Example for Assigning Event Handlers 253         14.3 Representing an Event as an Object 254         14.4 Using Aspect Oriented Programming in Dojo 256     15 Ajax Remoting 259         15.1 Remoting 259         15.2 Review of XMLHttpRequest (or XHR for Short) 260         15.3 The dojo.xhrGet Function 261             15.3.1 Parameters in Detail 264         15.4 dojo.xhrPost 264             15.4.1 Usage Example–Error Handling 268         15.5 Working with Forms 269             15.5.1 Dojo Function dojo.formToObject 270             15.5.2 Dojo Function dojo.objectToQuery 271             15.5.3 Dojo Function dojo.formToQuery 272             15.5.4 Dojo Function dojo.formToJson 274             15.5.5 Dojo Function dojo.queryToObject 274     16 Working with the DOM 277         16.1 Finding Needles in the DOM Haystack 277         16.2 Dojo Query 278             16.2.1 CSS Selectors 279             16.2.2 Using Selectors in dojo.query 282             16.2.3 Using DOM Elements Found by dojo.query 283         16.3 Animation 283             16.3.1 Understanding Animation 283             16.3.2 Dojo Animation Function 285             16.3.3 Standard Animation Effects 286     17 Testing and Debugging 293         17.1 Testing 293             17.1.1 Unit Testing 294             17.1.2 DOH–The Dojo Unit Testing Framework 294             17.1.3 Other Types of Testing 298         17.2 Logging 298             17.2.1 Basic Logging 299             17.2.2 Advanced Logging 300   Index 303