Chapter 13. Making Your Pages Dynamic

Effective Web pages are a result of many different factors, including compelling content, good design, and attention to details, such as how fast the page loads. One of the ways to speed up page loads, while still providing the user with an interesting and interactive experience, is to use JavaScript to make individual page elements update within the user's browser. In other words, instead of your Web server pushing the page experience to the user, the server pushes the script over the Internet. The script then uses the power of the user's computer to make the page come alive. Pages with scripts like these can be called dynamic pages.

By moving the processing from the server side to the client (user) side, you get better performance and you can personalize the user experience to some extent.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to use JavaScript to display the local date and time on your Web pages; customize a greeting by the time of day where your user is; convert between different time formats; and move an object across the user's page under script control.