Welcome to Yahoo! User Interface 2.x Cookbook. The Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML, and AJAX. Although you can create stylish Internet applications by modifying its default components, even advanced users find it challenging to create impressive feature-rich Internet applications using YUI.
This book will help you learn how to use YUI 2.x to build richer, more interactive web applications that impress clients and wow your friends. It starts by explaining the core features of YUI 2.x, the utilities that the rest of the library depends on and that will make your life easier. It then explains how to build UI components and make AJAX requests using the YUI framework. Each recipe will cover the most common ways to use a component and how to configure it, and then explain any other features that may be available. We wrap things up by looking at some of the recent beta components and explain how to use them, and how they may be useful on your web application.
Chapter 1: Using YUI 2.x, teaches various techniques for including YUI into your project, and how to use the Get, Cookie, and JSON utilities.
Chapter 2: Using Dom and Selector Components, teaches how to use the DOM and Selector components to fetch and manipulate DOM elements.
Chapter 3: Using Event Component, teaches how to attach events to DOM elements and how to use the powerful custom event system to create your own events.
Chapter 4: Using Connection Component, teaches how to make AJAX requests with YUI and subscribe to related events.
Chapter 5: Using DataSource Component, teaches how to abstract away sources of data with a powerful and easy to use interface.
Chapter 6: Using Logger and YUI Test Components, teaches how to use YUI to log JavaScript and then how to test your JavaScript applications.
Chapter 7: Using Element and Button Components, teaches how to leverage Element to simplify working with DOM elements, and Button to simplify working with Button elements.
Chapter 8: Using Menu Component, teaches how to create and manage Menu objects.
Chapter 9: Using Animation Component, teaches how to use YUI to animate DOM elements.
Chapter 10: Using Drag and Drop Component, teaches how to use the Drag and Drop utility.
Chapter 11: Using Container Component, teaches all about the container stack and the various widgets that make use of it.
Chapter 12: Using DataTable Component, teaches how to use DataTable to build more useful and interactable tables.
Chapter 13: Using TreeView Component, teaches how to use TreeView to organize hierarchical data.
Chapter 14: Other Useful Components, teaches the basics about some of the other well established widgets, such as Autocomplete and Slider.
Chapter 15: Some Interesting Beta Components, teaches the basics about some of the latest widgets, such as Storage and Charts.
You should have a good understanding of JavaScript, and some experience with HTML and CSS. Having some knowledge of server-side programming may help with a few examples that leverage the Connection component.
This book is intended for anyone who wants to improve their websites and online applications using the most powerful JavaScript library available. You should be able to walk away from each recipe with practical experience to be applied on your own projects.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Each of the components in the build folder will contain at least three JavaScript files."
A block of code is set as follows:
var loader = new YAHOO.util.YUILoader({
/* Insert Options Here */
});
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "A namespace is simply a JavaScript object whereon you can organize a component or related components".
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