Extending Acrobat Forms with JavaScript

Rating:
Summary: Useful, but heavily oriented to beginning programmers
Review: As the author says, this is currently the only book available that covers Javascript for Acrobat forms, so there's no real alternative. I'm a programmer of some 20 years experience, but quite new to Acrobat forms, so I was hoping for a concise description of the specific details. There is certainly much useful information in the book, and it's more approachable than Adobe's Javascript specifications. I did work through the entire book, but found the sheer amount of extremely basic material to be frustrating and distracting. The assumption seems to be that the reader has zero prior programming experience (although, in that case, the discussion of Javascript's object-oriented design seems remarkably skimpy). Much of the information seems more suited to a general "Programming 101" course. For example, in the second half of Chapter 5, we meet the revelation that it's better to use global variables than fixed constants. Similarly, the topic of functions isn't introduced until Chapter 14. In summary then, I obtained much useful information from the book, but was frustrated by the plodding, linear pace of parts. It would have helped me a lot if the author had used some way of distinguishing the "beginning programmer" material from the Adobe-specific information.

Rating:
Summary: The best way to start creating Acrobat eForms!
Review: I have been reading various guides including the Acrobat JavaScript Object Specifications and I was having the hardest time to perform the most simple tasks (I mean the ones not available in the software) such as "spawning" pages and working with templates, validating or formatting my forms; I was this close to giving up and have a programmer do it for me (I am a graphic designer) and I ordered this book. John Deubert makes it feel so simple! Through step by step exercises I got to feel comfortable with JavaScript, or at least I now understand how the various functions work together. This is a must for who wants to start creating eForms that are catchy and functional. Very easy to read and understand. Thank you for allowing me to "fiddle" with eForms myself.