Develop a Fundamental Understanding of Javascript

Languages such as Javascript or html are good starting points for learning computer programming. Programming is something that changes almost as fast as you learn it; and in some respects, any course you study, may be out of date before you complete it. Studying a course is however still an important and valuable way of getting a handle on computer programming. If you understand the fundamentals, even things that may have been superseded; you will be in a far better position to discover and understand the latest developments with respect to programming; and to teach yourself new languages as you encounter them. 

JavaScript is by far the most popular and widely used scripting language on the internet. It was invented by Brendan Eich at Netscape and has appeared in Netscape and Microsoft browsers since 1996. JavaScript has since grew in popularity and is now supported by all the major internet browsers (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome).

JavaScript is a scripting language which was designed to add more interactive features to static HTML pages. You may have seen some features on websites while browsing the internet such as mouse trailers, popup windows, drop down menus, countdown timers, embedded clocks, etc.; these are all developed using JavaScript. The JavaScript code is usually embedded in the HTML code and runs on the user’s browser, that’s why JavaScript is known as a client-side scripting language. However, the main downside of having a script running on the browser and the code embedded in HTML is that everybody can download and view the code, without the need for a license. Client-side and server-side scripting will be explained at the end of this lesson in more details.

JavaScript is a powerful scripting language which can be used to read and modify HTML elements, validate data, and it can also react to events such as a mouse click or a key press on the keyboard, etc.

COURSE STRUCTURE

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction Enabling Javascript (IE, Opera, Safari, Chrome, Firefox) Javascript in Web Applications
2. JavaScript Essentials I Operators Strings Arrays
3. JavaScript Essentials 2 Conditional Statements
4. Functions What is a Function Defining Functions Function Parameters & Return Javascript Build In Functions
5. Events and Event handling What is an Event Event Handling Document Object Model
6. Advanced JavaScript Cookies Browser Detection Creating Objects Objects in Javascript
7. Dynamic HTML Difference between Static & Dynamic DTHML Javascript DHTML XHTML DHTML CSS
8. Emails, Forms and Form Validation What is Form Validation Validating Text Fields Validating other Inputs
9. Pop Ups and Navigation Menus Alert Box Prompt Box Confirm Box Menus Pure CSS Menus
10. JavaScript Applications HTML, CSS & Javascript Code Validation Improve your Web Development

AIMS OF THE COURSE:

• Understand what JavaScript is, identify different locations for JavaScript and be able to enable JavaScript in different browsers.
• Develop knowledge of the basic programming constructs in JavaScript and their application.
• Further develop knowledge of JavaScript programming constructs in JavaScript and their application.
• Describe DOM, and Events and event handling and identify their application in JavaScript.
• Describe the different events, and explain how these can be handled with event handling in JavaScript.
• Understand conditional statements and explain in which situations they are used.
• Understand for loops and while loops and explain how these can be used in Javascript to improve efficiency of a program and reduce code length.
• Review key concepts of this course and write simple web applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

WHAT IS JAVASCRIPT

JavaScript is a scripting language which was designed to add more interactive features to static HTML pages. You may have seen some features on websites while browsing the internet such as popup windows, countdown timers, embedded clocks, etc.; these can all be developed using JavaScript. Another popular use is for form data input validation, for example, ensuring that input data on a Web form is valid.  The JavaScript code is usually embedded in the HTML code and runs on the user’s browser, that’s why JavaScript is known as a client-side scripting language. However, the main downside of having a script running on the browser and the code embedded in HTML is that everybody can download and view the code, without the need for a license.

HOW HTML, CSS AND JAVASCRIPT WORK TOGETHER

With HTML, style sheets and JavaScript, it is now possible to create dynamic web pages and websites which combine structure, style and interactive elements.  In this course, you saw how these 3 technologies interact together.

• HTML language: Hyper-Text Markup Language is used for defining the structure of the content such as paragraphs, lists, tables, images, comments, forms, and others.
  
  
• CSS style sheets: Style sheets are used to define how the elements should be displayed. This is also interpreted by the browser, which displays the various elements on the webpage with the styles and formats obtained from the relevant style sheets.
  
  
• JavaScript: This is a scripting language which allows the web page to become more user-friendly and interact to the user’s actions. The user’s actions are called “events”, and the way JavaScript interprets the events is called “event handling”, for example: clicking on the mouse, typing on the keyboard, moving the mouse, pressing the Enter key, etc.