jQuery
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jQuery is arguably one of the coolest
pieces of JavaScript code on the planet. While i ignored it for a long
time because i thought (based on the name) that it was an SQL library
for Java, once i did look at it it blew my socks off. As JS developer
Dave Methvin says:
"You start with 10 lines of jQuery that would have been 20 lines of
tedious DOM JavaScript. By the time you are done it's down to two or
three lines and it couldn't get any shorter unless it read your mind."
- Dave Methvin
That sounds like a lot of hype, but in my experience it is indeed
true. i believe it so much, that i wrote a short article about it,
called
Open letter to non-Believers.
If you do any significant amount of browser-based JavaScripting (as
opposed to embedded code, as in SpiderMonkey/SpiderApe), take a
few minutes to look over jQuery. Then take a few hours to get
comfortable with it. Then weep for all of the hours you've previously
wasted writing tedious code to traverse and manipulate DOM trees.
Once you start working with jQuery you will probably find it
easy to start writing your own plugins. My plugins are:
- BogoDice is a simple "dice roller" plugin, intended for use
with simple games.
- BogoFolders provides a navigational view similar to a conventional file manager.
- BogoTabs is a basic tabbed panels plugin for jQuery.
- BogoMenu is a "different" type of menu plugin which generates menus from JS structures, rather than from HTML structures.
- Color Picker is a basic color-picking widget for jQuery.
- Confirmer is a way to provide "confirm action XYZ" without the
use of confirmation dialogs or "confirm this" checkboxes.
- Spoilers is a plugin to keep text "hidden" from "casual observers".
Moving the mouse over the hidden text reveals it.
- TogglePane is similar to the standard Accordion
plugin for jQuery, but allows multiple elements to be shown at once.
- jqApp is not a plugin, but an application framework built on top of jQuery.