Where Does JavaScript Fit In?

Where Does JavaScript Fit In?

Navigator 2.0 is the most powerful version of Netscape's Web browser. Besides bringing together a collection of useful Internet-access tools, such as a mail client, a news reader, and improved support for the developing HTML 3 standard, Navigator 2.0 adds several features that enhance the ability of Web authors to develop complete, platform-independent applications deployed and executed in the Netscape browser. Going beyond the Web browser, Navigator Gold adds editing and development tools to the package.
These capabilities include an applications programmer's interface (API) for plug-ins. Plug-ins are program modules that dynamically extend the capability of Navigator 2.0 to handle new types of data and information, along with JavaScript and Java, which allow the addition of flexible progammability to Web pages.
In this chapter we also take a detailed look at the main features and aspects of JavaScript, as well as review the major strengths and weaknesses of the JavaScript language and its suitability to particular tasks.
We then dive deeper into objects and how they work and take a look at properties and methods—the building blocks of objects. We also look at the built-in objects in JavaScript and what they offer the programmer.
In this chapter we take a broad look at Navigator 2.0 and consider how JavaScript fits into the puzzle. You'll learn about the following topics:

• Frames: The ability to divide a window into multiple, independent sections
  
• Plug-ins: Third party add-ons for Navigator 2.0 that extend the browser's ability to handle new data and information
  
• Java: An object-oriented programming language for distributed applications
  
• JavaScript: A simple, object-based programming language incorporated into Navigator 2.0 (and the subject of this book)
  
• The similarities and differences between Java and JavaScript
  
• JavaScript as a scripting language
  
• Objects, properties, and methods
  
• The Navigator object hierarchy and other built-in objects
  
• Strengths and weaknesses of JavaScript