Author: David Sawyer McFarland
Publisher: Pogue Press, 2011
Pros: Clear and logical
Reviewed by: Ian Elliot
Part Two of the book introduces jQuery. Chapter 4 deals with the core of jQuery - the idea of a selector - and how to make use of the objects that are returned. The explanation of the way selectors work is about as clear as it can be. Selectors are a difficult topic and it is the part of jQuery that beginners find most difficult.
Chapter 5 deals with working with events via jQuery and Chapter 6 is all about animations and effects. This concludes our look at basic jQuery - again just 100 pages long. I would have like more - there is the whole subject of Ajax that has been skipped and there is a lot more to go into concerning selectors and more advanced ways of using jQuery. Some of these topics are covered in later parts of the book so don't think that you have just learned all there is to know about jQuery.
Part Three is all about examples and putting jQuery to work. However don't think that this is just a matter of using what you have been introduced to in parts 1 and 2 - there is a lot of new stuff in this part of the book. Chapter 7 is about images, Chapter 8 covers navigation and Chapter 9 is about web forms and validation in particular. Chapter 10 is about building more complex user interfaces.
Part Four is a two-chapter introduction to Ajax and an example of using it - Flickr and Google Maps. This more than makes up for not having covered Ajax in the introduction to jQuery in Part 2.