Introduction

Scripting is the act of writing little computer programs that can enhance the appearance and functionality of a web page. Browsers render web pages by placing objects onscreen. Scripts let you grab hold of those objects to make them do special things. You can grab hold of the browser’s status bar, for example, and write a message into it. You can make text on your web pages display active content, such as the current date and time. You can create rollover effects that highlight a graphic, make sounds, and pop out explanatory messages when the user moves the mouse over an object onscreen. When the user clicks a button to submit something typed into a text field, you can grab hold of the text field and validate what the user entered into it. You can also write scripts that use cookies to remember things as the user navigates from screen to screen. The database part of this book will provide you with scripts that can store, query, and update information in data tables.

What prevents many would-be programmers from succeeding at scripting, however, is learning how to handle the many different kinds of events that can happen when the user interacts with a web page. This book takes a new approach that removes this obstacle to learning how to script. Instead of expecting you to learn how to program your own event handlers, this book teaches you how to use Visual Studio tools that create event handlers automatically. This reduces considerably the complexity of the scripts you write. If you are one of the many non-programmers who are afraid of scripting because you tried learning it before but got stuck when it became too complex, now it is time to try again. Work through the scripting primer in this part of the book. It will teach you how to assign values to variables, perform comparisons, write active content onscreen, and grab hold of the objects that the browsers use to interact with the user. These are things that almost anyone who can think logically can learn how to do by following the step-by-step instructions in the primer part of the book.

After you complete the primer, you will be able to assess whether or not you want to continue programming or instead work from a graphical perspective as you proceed into the more advanced sections of this book. If you are working on a team, you may discover that some of the team members like to program, while others prefer working from a graphical perspective. Every team member should complete the scripting primer, however, so that all of the team will understand what scripts can accomplish. Then your team can plan when and where to employ scripts in accomplishing your project’s goals.