The third edition of Danny Goodman's classic reference on dynamic content was just released in November 2006. Thus, all reviews older than that are referring to a previous edition. Unlike previous editions of this book, the third edition has deleted the tutorial section entitled 'Applying Dynamic HTML', and is now pretty much a pure reference book. Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference is designed to work in conjunction with HTML: The Definitive Guide and JavaScript: The Definitive Guide. HTML: The Definitive Guide teaches you about every element of HTML in detail, with explanations of how each element works and how it interacts with other elements, as well as numerous examples.

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Corrections & Updates

Page 63. In the style element code near the bottom of the page, the second rule should be:
p:firstline {font-variant:small-caps}
Page 89-93 (DHTML API Listing). Unfortunately, Apple's Safari browser (including release 1.2) does not supportthe W3C DOM document.defaultView.getComputedStyle() method to facilitate reading the effective style ofan element. This screws up some of the API functions in that browser. The quick fix is to modify each line of thegetObjectLeft() and getObjectTop() functions that currently read:
if (document.defaultView) {
to:
if (document.defaultView && document.defaultView.getComputedStyle) {
This forces Safari to use the elem.style.left and elem.style.top properties -- not ideal for a W3C DOM browser, but it seems to do the job.
Page 90. The very first code line on the page should be:
theObj = seekLayer(doc.layers[i].document, name);
Page 102. In Example 5-1, the document.write() method argument has an extra quote that doesn't belong. The statement should be:
document.write(navigator.userAgent + '.');
Page 102. The fourth line from the bottom of Example 5-2 shows an uppercase close tag at the end of the line. It should be: </p>.
Page 142. The last text range example (Turning a user selection into a text range) is missing a set of empty parentheses in the Netscape code. The statement should read:
var rangeRef = window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0);
Pages 163-4. The discussion about the event.returnValue property in IE incorrectly indicates that the property returns true by default. This is not correct (despite Microsoft's claims to the contrary). In fact, this is one of the oddest object properties in the entire IE DOM in that its default value is undefined. What's so weird about this is that I know of no other object that enumerates an undefined property (i.e., you can use for-in introspection of the object to uncover the returnValue property whose value shows up as undefined). Normally, an undefined property doesn't show up in the enumeration because the property is, well, undefined, as in 'doesn't exist.'
In the numberPlease() function at the bottom of page 164, the most deeply nested group of if conditions is predicated on the returnValue property returning true by default. Since that is never the case, the first if branch never executes. There is no way (that I know of) to find out if the current browser supports the property because any property detection scheme is immediately defeated by the property's default value (sigh).
Therefore, the solution is to set the property whether or not it's there:
if (evt.preventDefault) { evt.preventDefault(); else { evt.returnValue = false; return false; }
It's redundant to include the return false statement for browsers that support returnValue, but it covers the older browsers, as well, without conflicting with IE5 and later.
Page 209. Another constant value for the target attribute is _content, which works in Netscape 6+ for links in a sidebar that change the page in the main content area.
Page 265. While in theory you should be able to specify the <?xml> declaration at the top of an XHTML document, IE6 unfortunately interprets this as a switch to go back to quirks (backward-compatible) CSS mode, no matter what DTD you point to in the <!DOCTYPE> declaration. To validate your pages completely with the W3C XHTML validators, include your character set in a meta tag, like this:
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' />
Page 304. The xmlns attribute has two possible assignment operators, depending upon its usage. The equal sign (=) is used to assign a namespace specification (typically a URI) to a default namespace to be used by the current element and any of its child elements. The colon (:) is used to assign a namespace specification (URI) to a namespace prefix (so that the prefix acts like a shortcut namespace reference when used to denote attributes belonging to a particular namespace).
A common example is the you can use in an XHTML document to signify that the document is to use -- by default -- the W3C XHTML DTD as the source of meaning for elements and attributes in the rest of the document:
<html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xml:lang='en'>
Namespace prefixes are used (primarily in XML documents) when you have a mixture of DTDs from multiple sources governing the element and attribute rules of the document. For example:
<html xmlns:au='http://www.writers.org/2002/author-guidelines'>
Once the au prefix is assigned, it can be used in other elements within the scope of the <html> element to signify an attribute defined by the DTD associated with the namespace URI (theoretically allowing the 'custom' attribute to validate correctly):
<p au:license='Creative Commons'>...</p>
Internet Explorer (at least for Windows) appears to have some additional namespace prefixes built into it. Thus the example shown in the book (xmlns:MSIE). I haven't yet found a sufficient explanation about what they are or when you'd use them.
Page 306.Details about the allowtransparency attribute of the <iframe> tag were inadvertently omitted. Theattribute is available in IE 5.5 or later and controls whether the background plane of the iframe element is transparent or opaque. To allow the main document to show through the iframe, set the allowtransparency attribute to true and either leave the iframe's background-color style property at its default setting (transparent) or set it explicitly to transparent. Note that this transparency affects the iframe element, independent of any document loaded into the iframe. Therefore, if you want a background style to affect only the iframe, you must set the allowtransparency attribute of the iframe to true and set the background of the element that appears behind any document loaded into the iframe (provided the document's background is transparent). An allowtransparency attribute setting of false (the default) does not allow background styles associated with the iframe element to be visible (but background styles in the iframe's nested document will be visible).
Page 358. Netscape 4 does appear to support the href attribute for the <link> tag. The Netscape engineers never documented it, which I frequently interpret to mean that while they may have implemented the attribute, they don't guarantee it. But a report from the field indicates reliable support for a variety of NN4.xx generations.
Pages 363-369. Mozilla added some support for the Microsoft <marquee> tag at the last minute before the Netscape 7 release (I was working with the Mozilla 1.0 branch, and Netscape 7 was eventually built from the Mozilla 1.0.1 branch, which arose after the book went to bed). Including this non-W3C element was bitterly contested until the end, but because some important

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