Our introductory series on progressive enhancement and the ways it can be implemented concludes with a look at the mindset needed to implement PE in JavaScript, and a survey of best practices for doing so.
Topic: JavaScript
Progressive Enhancement with CSS
Organize multiple style sheets to simplify the creation of environmentally appropriate visual experiences. Support older browsers while keeping your CSS hack-free. Use generated content to provide visual enhancements, and seize the power of advanced selectors to create wondrous (or amusing) effects. Part two of a series.
Understanding Progressive Enhancement
Steven Champeon turned web development upside down, and created an instant best practice of standards-based design, when he introduced the notion of designing for content and experience instead of browsers. In part one of a series, ALA’s Gustafson refreshes us on the principles of progressive enhancement. Upcoming installments will translate the philosophy into sophisticated, future-focused design and code.
Test-Driven Progressive Enhancement
Starting with semantic HTML, and layering enhancements using JavaScript and CSS, is supposed to create good experiences for all. Alas, enhancements still find their way to aging browsers and under-featured mobile devices that don’t parse them properly. What’s a developer to do? Scott Jehl makes the case for capabilities testing.
CSS Sprites2 – It’s JavaScript Time
In 2004, Dave Shea took the CSS rollover where it had never gone before. Now he takes it further still—with a little help from jQuery. Say hello to hover animations that respond to a user’s behavior in ways standards-based sites never could before.
Getting Out of Binding Situations in JavaScript
Every wonder who you really are? Congratulations! You have a lot in common with JavaScript. Learn once and for all how to train your JavaScript to remember who it is and what it’s doing.
Creating More Using Less Effort with Ruby on Rails
The “why” of Ruby on Rails comes down to productivity, says Michael Slater. Web applications that share three characteristics, they’re database-driven, they’re new, and they have needs not well met by a typical CMS, can be built much more quickly with Ruby on Rails than with PHP, .NET, or Java, once the investment required to learn Rails has been made. Does your web app fall within the RoR “sweet spot?”
Getting Started with Ruby on Rails
The “how” of Ruby on Rails: Hivelogic’s Dan Benjamin prepares non-Rails developers, designers, and other creative professionals for their first foray into Rails. Learn what Ruby on Rails is (and isn’t), and where it fits into the spectrum of web development and design. See through the myths surrounding this powerful young platform, and learn how to approach working with it.
Take Control of Your Maps
It is now possible to replicate Google Maps’ functionality with open source software and produce high-quality mapping applications tailored to your design goals. Paul Smith shows how.
Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8
For seven years, the DOCTYPE switch has stood designers and developers in good stead as a toggle between standards mode and quirks mode. But when IE7, with its greatly improved support for standards, “broke the web,” it revealed the flaw in our toggle. The quest was on to find a more reliable ensurer of forward compatibility. Is version targeting the answer?
