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July of 1998 started off well for me. My
wife and I had just celebrated our sixth
wedding anniversary by spending the Fourth of July weekend in New York City. There
are few things as enjoyable and relaxing as going through the
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the
American Museum of Natural History,
or taking in
Shakespeare in the Park
at Central Park's DeLacorte Theatre with one's best friend. But once our anniversary
weekend was over, things went down hill very quickly.
The day after we came back home, I severely injured my right ankle while birdwatching
(apparently I could have been a lot more careful trying to get a better look at a
Yellow Warbler).
This injury really put a damper on our weekend activities, and
found me in physical therapy some four months after. A few days after my ankle injury,
a serious health problem came very close to lessening the number of people in my immediate family.
My brother's wife had an almost fatal stroke. Thankfully, as of this writing, she's made an
absolutely remarkable recovery, and in addition to raising her two daughters, is now back
at work as an ICU nurse at a hospital in central Connecticut. (Way to go, CJ...)
The week after my injury, my employers at that time, a sizeable provider of electronic commerce
software applications and services for the Web, decided to shutdown our division by year's end.
A lot of very good friends of mine were immediately laid off as soon as the announcement was made.
Those of us that were retained received termination contracts of different lengths. My own contract
expired in October.
It was during this time while waiting for our first set of assignments to complete for the
shutdown, four colleagues of mine at the office, Chris Trueblood, Bob Heuer, Robert Dute,
Yang Wang, Jack Galada and I had one of our many informal gatherings, where talk of more technology
related items turned a bit silly. One of the threads of that discussion was on the capabilities
of DHTML, or Dynamic HTML, which became a viable Web browser client development technology
with the release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 earlier that year. The concept of having
a Web based dogfight, featuring a Stealth Fighter, came about during the course of that discussion.
If anyone ever questions the value of keeping a sense of humor about you as much as possible,
regardless of your current circumstances, please refer them to this collection of Web pages.
Dynamic HTML
DHTML, or Dynamic HTML, is a set of extensions to the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which has
been the bedrock of all Web based content for a number of years. DHTML allows Web page developers
to gain a higher degree of control over the appearance and placement of any of the items displayed
inside a Web page. The combination of these elements with Web browser scripting, which came about
with Netscape's development of the JavaScript language as part of Netscape Navigator 3.0, made it
possible to develop more sophisticated and interactive Web pages. Dynamic HTML Dogfight uses DHTML
and JavaScript to make your interaction with either of the two planes in these pages more engaging.
To learn more about JavaScripting, and DHTML, I would like to recommend the following resources;
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Danny Goodman's two remarkable books on JavaScripting and Dynamic HTML;
JavaScript Bible, 3rd Edition (IDG Books, ISBN:
0-7645-3188-3), and Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference
(O'Reilly Press, ISBN: 1-56592-494-0). Both are extremely well written and organized,
and emphasize cross browser compatibility in developing DHTML content.
http://www.dannyg.com/recentwriting.html
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Alex Homer and Chris Ullman's Instant IE4 Dynamic HTML Programmer's Reference - IE4
Edition (Wrox Press, ISBN: 1-86100-068-5). Although geared towards developing
interactive Web pages for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the examples in this book show
a great deal of what is possible in the realm of DHTML.
http://www.wrox.com/Consumer/Store/Details.asp?ISBN=1861000685
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WebReference.com - Dynamic HTML Lab is one of the best on-line resources for DHTML
development, and has one of the most useable and valuable E-mail based newsletters around.
If you're involved in Web development, either professionally or as a hobby, you should really look over
this treasure trove of information.
http://www.webreference.com/dhtml/
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Other Web Pages are by far, the most widely avaialable resource on the Web
for learning more about DHTML and JavaScripting. Just open your Web browser's View/Source
or View/Page Source menu item, and take a look at how a Web page you like was
constructed. By all means, please feel free to do the same with the actual dogfight pages here
as well. I've tried to comment the JavaScript source code as much as possible, in case
I have to make a change to the code long after some of the specifics and other details
have left my memory. But at the same time,I hope you can benefit from the source comments
as well. If you have any questions or comments on the source code, please
E-mail me and I'll try to answer your questions
as soon as I can.
How Did You Do That?
All HTML and JavaScript were written using Microsoft's VisualStudio 97 (with Service Pack 3
applied) under Windows NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 5 applied). If you aren't familiar with
this package, VisualStudio is an integrated development environment that includes a number
of development tools, including a useful text editor that allows you to quickly switch between
editing HTML source code and previewing how a page would look inside a Web browser, and on-line
and context sensitive help facility, which also has a great deal of material on
DHMTL. All graphic elements were created in Macromedia's Fireworks 2 for Microsoft Windows.
All of the pages were checked off-line under Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.0 and Netscape
Navigator 4.61 before being uploaded. All pages were checked on-line with the same Windows NT based
applications, in addition to Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 and Netscape Navigator 4.0 under the Apple
Macintosh Operating System 8.5.1.
Many Thanks
As mentioned before, much of the original concept credit should be shared with Chris Trueblood,
Bob Heuer, Robert Dute, Yang Wang and Jack Galada. I'd also like to thank Dalin "Edward" Li for exposing
me to the advantages of incorporating JavaScript into Web page development as well as his
friendship and patience, and Jacqueline Patti and Matt Palermo for refining
my understanding of DHTML and showing me the finer points of
JavaScripting. I owe a great deal, as always, to my wife Marie, especially for
her patience in helping me through with some of features in Macromedia's Fireworks. And last but not least,
thank you for visiting and reading these pages. If you enjoyed them, please share the URLs with a
friend.
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