What Is jQuery?

According to Wikipedia, jQuery is the most popular JavaScript library in use today. Created in 2006 by John Resig, jQuery development is today managed by the jQuery project, an open-source community affiliated with the Software Freedom Conservancy. As you may know (or guessed by looking at the jQuery logo below), people like me love jQuery because it lets you write less code and do more really cool (and incredibly useful) things.

jquery logo - one of many

What Can You Do With jQuery?

Quoting from the jQuery project, “jQuery simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid Web development.” I use jQuery for manipulating Web content in cool ways. For example, rather than using Flash for an image rotator, we can use jQuery and gain the following benefits:

  1. It’s more accessible and it degrades better.
  2. It works on mobile devices (the jQuery project has released jQuery Mobile to expedite mobile development).

The folks at the jQuery project do a lot of browser testing on all the different desktop and mobile browsers – eliminating or greatly reducing the time needed for cross-browser testing. Traditionally, you’d write something and your scripts would work in Firefox, but not in IE. The jQuery team has already run those tests for you and has built in the proper functionality for each browser.

 jQuery Development and Web Effectiveness

So, yes, as I’ve mentioned, the projects we develop with jQuery are really cool, though at the same time, they’re also really useful. Here are two examples:

Image Rotator Plugin

The Image Rotator plugin can be inserted on a page or template where it automatically cycles through a  list of images. It also allows for the use of linked images, custom styled controls and captions, all done with jQuery. Users can very easily alter content and make the images into a magical slideshow – this can be done within SiteExecutive (no coding or scripting required). So rather than using Flash, the rotator actually parses through the set of list elements on the page and figures out what slide to transition to, what control to highlight and how to handle each of the separate events.  It’s all very simple to implement, completely configurable, even down to custom events upon transition, and anybody can edit it.

Key benefits of the image rotator:

  • It’s easy to use
  • Highly configurable – even transition events can be configured
  • Easily styled
  • Negates need for Flash (provides Flash-like functionality with cross browser / platform support)

Sample client sites:

Content Rotator

The content rotator is a lot like the image rotator. This plugin allows content authors to create a list of links pointing to other pages within their site.  On page load, using our plugin, we can pull these external content sources into a single page giving visitors controls to move between pieces of content or setting content so it cycles automatically. 

So if I have a set of “spotlight” content pages, the plugin goes out and grabs the appropriate content, pulls it into the page, and displays the content in the proper format. Once it’s configured, the plugin will transition through each page, giving site visitors a glimpse of content from other pages they may find of interest.

Key benefits of the content rotator:

  • It’s easy to use
  • Highly configurable
  • Easily styled
  • Negates need for Flash – cross browser / platform support

Example sites: