Great news! O'Reilly has been kind enough to let me distribute my eBook Unobtrusive Ajax to readers of my blog, so now you can download and read it for free!

Download "Unobtrusive Ajax" eBook

From the book's cover:

Unobtrusive Ajax is about making web applications that work for everyone all the time, even if you have JavaScript turned off, or you're using a mobile phone or a screen reader, or however you happen to be using the Web. It's about the separation of behavior (JavaScript), content (HTML), and presentation (CSS).

This short cut will focus on the practical benefits of using Ajax and JavaScript unobtrusively and show you that unobtrusive web development and progressive enhancement benefit both web developers and users of the Web. You'll get to see many simple examples of building web interfaces that are unobtrusive. You'll quickly see that it is actually very easy to make web applications that everyone can use.

When you're finished reading this book, you will be able to convince anyone why developing unobtrusively is the best way to build a site with JavaScript and Ajax.

I wrote this book back in 2007, before I'd discovered jQuery, so writing unobtrusive JavaScript has become even easier than ever. That said, the principals of writing web pages that work without JavaScript remain the same: keep your content in the HTML, use real links and forms, and avoid depending on JavaScript or Flash for any critical functionality.

Nowadays, I would also suggest bearing different user interfaces in mind. Not every visitor to your website has a mouse and a keyboard, some are using their handheld touchscreen phones, and if your shopping cart requires people to drag and drop, you may end up losing customers. Be careful not to make assumptions about your visitors. If you stick with basic HTML, you can't go wrong.