Jquery

Links to jquery tutorials, scripts and plugins that we have found useful.

jQuery Accessible Tabs (#)

More often then not jQuery tabs have the format of using a <ul> above the content to hold what becomes the tabs. This is cool if you are happy with the non-javascript result. You can see what I mean by viewing this version of jQuery tabs with your javascript off. Contrast with this version of jQuery tabs. See the difference?

They really are two different situations and for the time when you simply want to turn a semantically happy piece of text into tabs without having to add a <ul> of links above, this looks to be the answer.

markItUp! jquery markup editor (#)

We've been using jquery for our projects here but are still looking for a decent wysiwyg editor to build into our CSS.

This editor is a bit different, in that its not wysiwyg but simply a markup editor, that is it will simply insert tags into your code in a fashion similar to your favorite html editor (or at least mine :).

This is going to be a new option in our CMS for those people who prefer to see code in its raw format rather then a wysiwyg format.

WYMeditor: web-based XHTML editor (#)

Jquery's innovative what-you-mean text editor.

We like this editor in house, and as one may imagine have found it a bit too advanced for people who do not know html or who are easily confused by the extra detail. Nonetheless it is an option in our CMS as some writers appreciate the structure it offers.

jQuery Sparklines (#)

Here's a great little jQuery Sparklines plugin that will draw a whole assortment of chart types as sparklines. Play with the Try It Out section to get a feel of how it works and then dive into the source code and examples. What is cool, if you view one of the example pages with JS disabled, you can see the underlying data rather then the chart. I could see this being relevant for use in some cases (for example stock market reporting covering the close on the cac-40 for the last week) and how this plugin works to accomplish what unobtrusive JavaScript should do: enhance the user experience not create the user experience.

Custom events in jQuery open doors to complex behaviors (#)

Rebecca Murphey provides a look at using custom events in jQuery. While she doesn't really get to the why until the end of the article, the benefits are certainly something worth having in your code:

  1. Well-organized code that consolidates the behavior widgets in a few bind() statements, rather than scattering those behaviors across the elements that initiate them
  2. Added flexibility as it’s any element can initiate a behavior, or a behavior can be triggered across multiple widgets at once
  3. Use of a control element which captures a click event and translates it into an event to be triggered on the widget.
  4. Better organization of your code, abstraction and increased ability to reuse code

I'm no JavaScript wizard and I am looking forward to implementing some of this logic in the near future to consolidate some of the jQuery we use in a few client sites.

jQuery Rich Text Editor (#)

We use jQuery for most things in our CMS but for the moment use Cameron Adams' widgEditor as a lightweight RTE. Here we have a fork off of Batiste Bieler's jQuery Lightweight Rich Text Editor that looks like it could be a decent jQuery option in our next release, which is targeted at using nothing but jQuery for behaviour.

Functionality is what you would expect from a lightweight RTE, down to the small footprint of the source code which should be easy to customize for your own work. It has a GPL license and is tested and fully compatible with Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE6, and IE7.

jWYSIWYG (#)

An interesting looking light weight wysiwyg editor for jquery.

We haven't tested this yet but if it outputs decent markup and works across a decent range of browsers it will be hard to look elsewhere, what with its light footprint and simple setup and use (i.e. links and images are js modals, not html pages in pop-ups).

Check out the Resource categories for older content

The latest from my personal website,
Mike Papageorge.com

SiteUptime Web Site Monitoring Service

Sitepoint's web devlopment books have helped me out on many occasions both for finding a quick solution to a problem but also to level out my knowlegde in weaker areas (JavaScript, I'm looking at you!). I am recommending the following titles from my bookshelf:

The Principles Of Successful Freelancing

I started freelancing by diving in head first and getting on with it. Many years and a lot of experience later I was still able to take away some gems from this book, and there are plenty I wish I had thought of beforehand. If you are new to freelancing and have a lot of questions (or maybe don't know what questions to ask!) do yourself a favor and at least check out the sample chapters.

The Art & Science Of JavaScript

The author line-up for this book says it all. 7 excellent developers show you how to get your JavaScript coding up to speed with 7 chapters of great theory, code and examples. Metaprogramming with JavaScript (chapter 5 from Dan Webb) really helped me iron out some things I was missing about JavaScript. That said each chapter really helped me to develop my JavaScript skills beyond simple Ajax calls and html insertion with libs like JQuery.

The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Like the other books listed here, this provides a great reference for the PHP developer looking to have the right answers from the right people at their fingertips. I tend to pull this off the shelf when I need to delve into new territory and usually find a workable solution to keep development moving. This only needs to happen once and you recoup the price of the book in time saved from having to develop the solution or find the right pattern for getting the job done..