The era of professional JavaScript development has arrived! Gone are the days when writing all the client–side code for your applications by hand yourself was the norm. Gone are the days when scrounging around the Internet to find a snippet of code to do something you need could lead to either decent code or utter garbage that you’d surely regret using later.

No, writing high–quality JavaScript these days is a whole lot easier with the advent of top–notch libraries that save you time and effort, and one that stands out from most others is Dojo.

Dojo is a library like few others: written by some of the best JavaScript coders around today, providing nearly everything you’ll need to write modern Rich Internet Applications, all in one place. From Ajax to widgets, to client–side persistence and language extensions, and many points in between, Dojo has it all.

In Practical Dojo Projects, you’ll learn all about what Dojo has to offer. You’ll see it in action in the form of five fully functional applications, which include

* A contact manager for storing info for all the important people in your life
* A code cabinet: a place to store, index, and get code snippets from
* A stock tracker to keep track of your stock portfolio
* A message forum for open discussions on topics you define
* Even a fun little game!

By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have a firm grasp on what Dojo is all about, and you’ll have the preparation you need to begin to use it yourself in your own projects. See you inside!
What you’ll learn

* Uncover the fundamentals of Dojo, its core, Dojo Widgets, and DojoX.
* Build sophisticated JavaScript/Ajax–based applications starting with a Dojo contact manager.
* Create a code cabinet, a place to store snippets of code for later reuse using Dojo and Dojo Offline (based on Google Gears).
* See how to build an interactive and fun came application using Dojo.
* Build a stock watcher application, which allows you to enter ticker symbols and will show you real–time updates using some available web service; show net gain/loss over various time periods (hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/yearly) with various charts and graphs.
* Take Dojo into social networking by building a messaging forums application.


Who is this book for

Web application developers, senior projects leads, and application architects