Entries Tagged 'ajax' ↓

JavaScript is an integral part of the RIA revolution. JavaScript allows developers to create rich and interactive web interfaces and establish asynchronous communication with servers for constantly up-to-date data without a page refresh.

Many things that were once accomplished using Flash objects can now be built using JavaScript – with the added benefit that it is free, typically more web and mobile accessible under most circumstances using best practices for development techniques, and without the need to use proprietary software for development.

Though JavaScript has been around for a while, new tools, techniques, and information are constantly being pumped out to continually push the technology into greater heights. In this article, we wish to share with you a huge list of fresh and new tools and resources that JavaScript developers will find useful and informative.

Here are a few other posts that you might find interesting:

• 50 Useful JavaScript Tools
• 40 Useful JavaScript Libraries
• jQuery and JavaScript Coding

Useful JavaScript Tools

FireUnit
Unit testing is an integral part of building high-performance and efficient web applications. John Resig (creator of jQuery library) and Jan Odvarko have developed an excellent Firefox/Firebug extension called FireUnit which gives developers logging and testing capabilities via a simple JavaScript API. For those interested in the tool, you should also read Odvarko’s post detailing the usage of FireUnit.

Sugar Test
SugarTest makes it easy to write elegant and understandable JavaScript tests. Its API is inspired by both RSpec, Shoulda and jQuery. It works as a DSL running on top of JsUnitTest.

JS.Class: Ruby-style JavaScript
JS.Class is a library designed to facilitate object-oriented development in JavaScript. It implements Ruby’s core object, module and class system and some of its metaprogramming facilities, giving you a powerful base to build well-structured OO programs.

JSON Formatter and Validator
The JSON Formatter was created to help with debugging. As data expressed as JSON is often written without line breaks to save space, it became extremely difficult to actually read it. This tool hopes to solve the problem by formatting the JSON into data that is easily readable by human beings.

Faux Console: Simulating a Firebug, Safari or Opera debugging in IE
Browsers like Safari, Opera and Firefox use the Firebug extension that offers a developer a comfortable way to output debugging information using the console.log() command. Microsoft Internet Explorer does not support this though – Faux Console is a small JavaScript that you can embed in the document to have a basic debugging console in IE.

JS Bin
JS Bin is a web application for testing and debugging JavaScript and CSS collaboratively. You input your source code and save it to a publicly-accessible URL which you can then share to your fellow developers or in social networking outlets like Twitter or Facebook groups. Be sure to check out the video introduction to see JS Bin in action.

PHP.JS
PHP.JS is an open source project in which we try to port PHP functions to JavaScript. By including the PHP.JS library in your own projects, you can use your favorite PHP functions client-side.

Page Speed
Page Speed, released by Google, is a Firefox/Firebug extension very similar to YSlow that evaluates your web pages for performance. Read more about Page Speed best practices to see what aspects of a web page are being evaluated. YSlow and Page Speed are based off Steve Souder’s work (who worked for Yahoo! and now works for Google).

prettyPrint
prettyPrint is an in-browser JavaScript utility for dumping variable information, inspired by ColdFusion’s built-in cfdump utility function. Using prettyPrint on JS objects, variables, and arrays will give you a large array of information about them, which you can then use for debugging purposes or simply for gathering data about them for documentation.

Spket IDE
Spket is an excellent toolkit for JavaScript and XML development. It has a robust and intuitive GUI, and integrates with popular and powerful JavaScript/Ajax libraries such as Y!UI and jQuery. Its JavaScript Formatter feature gives you unparalleled control and standardization for you or your team’s JavaScript code formatting standards.

Obtrusive JavaScript Checker
Obtrusive JavaScript Checker, created by Robert Nyman, is a tool for finding inline JavaScript on web pages. It highlights elements that have inline JavaScript properties and provides a summary report when you mouse over them. The tool is available as a Firefox extension or a Greasemonkey script.

Highlight.js
Highlight.js highlights syntax in code examples on blogs, forums and other web pages. The tool works automatically: it finds blocks of code, detects a language and highlights it accordingly.

Javascript Compressor
Javascript Compressor is a web-based tool for compressing your JavaScript to reduce their file sizes. It works by removing unnecessary characters (such as extra tabs and spaces). Developers who use the tool to compress their code can also use the decoding feature to uncompress their source code. It also obfuscates your code, making it harder to read – which can be desirable if you want to delay prying eyes from analyzing your publicly-available code base.

Firediff
Firediff is a Firefox/Firebug extension that allows you to track changes in the DOM and CSS. By logging these changes, you can gain information about how web applications work, and what elements (and what properties) are being altered by way of DOM manipulation.

RockStar Web Profiler
RockStar Web Profiler (aka Razor) logs and profiles information about client-side performance. It provides developers with a console for analyzing the data gathered by the tool. Check out the RockStar Web Profiler presentation to get an overview of its many awesome features.

bookmarklet maker
This plain and simple web tool allows you to create JavaScript-based bookmarklets. Usage is simple: simply copy and paste your source code into it and it will output the processed code in the lower pane.

Tiny JS
Tiny JS is an online directory of small but powerful plugins for popular JavaScript/Ajax libraries (MooTools, jQuery, and YUI at the moment). Its aim is to hunt down and feature lightweight plugins that give you a lot of bang for the buck.

JSCharts
JS Charts is a free JavaScript based chart generator that requires little or no coding. With JS Charts drawing charts is a simple and easy task, since you only have to use client-side scripting (i.e. performed by your web browser). No additional plugins or server modules are required. It’s enough to include the scripts, prepare your chart data in XML or JavaScript Array and your chart is ready.

Glimmer
Glimmer is an interactive design tool for incorporating slick JavaScript-based animation effects using the jQuery library. Glimmer comes with a wizard-style user interface which can reduce the amount of coding that you have to write manually.

JSSPec
A testing environment for JavaScript that runs on IE 6+, Firefox 2+ and Safari 3+. The tool shows differences between expected value and actual value, displays the failed line exactly and supports conditional execution. Released under GNU and available for free download.

CodeRun Code Search
CodeRun’s Code Search tool lets you search and view user-submitted Ajax, PHP, and .NET source code. Once you’ve found a script or project that you’re interested in, you can edit it via their web-based IDE without having to download the project locally.

BaseJS: A Mobile (Safari) Javascript Framework
a simple, lightweight framework created specifically for Mobile Safari (perfect for iPhone development).

MochaUI
MochaUI is a web-based tool for building web application interfaces built on top of the MooTools JavaScript framework. Jump right in by taking MochaUI for a spin in their demo page.

Utility Libraries and Components for JavaScript

narwhal
narwhal is a server-side JavaScript library following the ServerJS standard. Developers can create and share “packages” for website widgets, site features, programming patterns, in a similar fashion as PEAR for PHP.

uploadify
uploadify is a useful jQuery plugin for dealing with file uploads. It’s powered by a simple PHP script for handling the server-side stuff. Be sure to check out the uploadify demos to see the plugin in action.

Blackbird
Blackbird lets you log messages in JavaScript using a simple and intuitive JS-based API. The library also provides you with an attractive console GUI for viewing and analyzing messages. No more annoying alert() functions to see your objects’ contents (which can be frustrating for printing out array values) and for setting breakpoints.

Booklaylet
Booklaylet is a JS library for letting you easily deploy your bookmarklet applications. The implementation is dead simple: take the Booklaylet source and modify it to point to your app’s URL.

JavaScripTools
JavaScipTools is a collection of useful JS components, functions, and classes with the aim of addressing some of the more common web developer tasks such as parsing and formatting of data types (i.e. date and time). It also comes with a dynamic table function for creating sortable HTML tables.

Doodle.js
HTML 5’s Canvas element gives developers a way to draw stuff on web pages programmatically. Doodle.js is a utility library/framework for working with more complex and robust Canvas drawing processes. Check out Spiral Pattern demo and the Marbles in Space (3D simulation) demo in a browser that already supports Canvas to get a feel for how Doodle.js works.

liteAJaX
liteAJaX is a lightweight JavaScript class for working with AJAX. This library is perfect for projects that don’t use a JavaScript/Ajax framework or projects that don’t need a more robust and fully-featured framework.

Burst
Burst is a vector animation engine for HTML 5’s Canvas element. With it, you can create smooth, Flash-like animation effects for browsers that support Canvas.

JSTestDriver
JSTestDriver is a Java-based framework for creating unit test following Test-Driven Development philosophies and best practices. Be sure to check out this video demonstration of JSTestDriver in action.

jsPDF
This library allows you to create PDF’s using nothing else but JavaScript. See the jsPDF demo page to see the library in action.

Useful JavaScript Libraries

GlassBox
GlassBox is a beautiful and refreshing take on modal windows that creates an interesting feeling of transparency as if you were looking through a glass. Check out the example page to see different types of GlassBox implementations.

jQuery TOOLS
jQuery TOOLS is a toolbox that gives developers some of the most popular UI design patterns at their disposal in an easy-to-use manner. View some of the things you can do with jQuery TOOLS in the project’s demo page.

Moousture
Moosture is a JavaScript library for dealing with mouse gestures, written on top of the MooTools framework.

Tablecloth
Tablecloth is a lightweight and unobtrusive JavaScript library for styling and adding dynamic user interaction to HTML tables.

Unobtrusive Table Actions Script
This simple and lightweight library brings together a set of common and useful functions for dealing with HTML tables, such as zebra-striping rows, highlighting rows on mouse over, and column highlighting.

LivePipe
LivePipe is a set of widgets and controls for adding common user interaction components to web applications using the Prototype JavaScript framework.

JavaScript Graphical / Virtual Keyboard Interface
This JavaScript package adds a virtual keyboard interface into web pages.

Tipmage
Tipmage is a JavaScript class for handling tooltips and annotations on images, similar to annotated images on Flickr.

qGallery
qGallery is a simple but beautiful JavaScript for creating image galleries with smooth and slick animation effects.

Educational JavaScript Resources and Tutorials

Ajax Frameworks Decision Center
For large companies, committing to a JavaScript/Ajax framework such as Prototype, MooTools, or jQuery is a big decision because it affects a large amount of employees and will dictate the direction of the company’s client-side interaction and RIA development philosophies. Using the Ajax Frameworks Decision Center gives you an organized, quantitative, and thorough method for making a solid decision.

jQuery vs MooTools
This single-page site by MooTools Dev Team member Aaron Newton is a comparative look into jQuery versus MooTools.

Ajax Framework Analysis Results
This analysis of popular JavaScript/Ajax frameworks (Dojo, Ext JS, GWT, YUI) is a great resource for gathering research data for your own frameworks: the analysis matrix factors in criteria such as scalability, extensibility, quality and quantity of documentation, and much more. You can adapt this matrix, tweak their weights, and modify criterions to help you decide which JS framework to go with.

Sexy Drop Down Menu w/ jQuery & CSS
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a multi-tiered drop down menu with the use of the jQuery library.

Easy Display Switch with CSS and jQuery
This tutorial outlines a method for using jQuery to smoothly-transition into different viewing modes, which can be helpful in image galleries.

Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery
This is a step-by-step jQuery tutorial that I wrote for creating a simple and slick slideshow that can be adapted to display different content types. Check out the demo page to see the slideshow in action.

Learning Advanced JavaScript
John Resig has a slideshow-style, web-based tutorial on advanced JavaScript development. It is a wonderful stepping-stone for JavaScript developers ready to make the leap into RIA development using JavaScript.

JavaScript tests & Compatibility tables
This resource is a well-organized cheatsheet for JavaScript methods cross-browser compatibility backed by sample tests that you can run to see how they work (or don’t work) in your browser.

Code Conventions for the JavaScript
On this page, you can find suggested coding conventions for JavaScript. It is important to note that there is no one correct convention, but this is a great place to start developing your own.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a bilingual web developer (JavaScript and PHP), web designer, author, and the Founder/Chief Editor of Six Revisions: an online publication that shares useful development and design resources and tutorials for web professionals. If you would like to contact him, send him a tweet and follow him on Twitter.

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Post tags: ajax, jquery, js, tools, useful

One of the most fundamental reasons for Google’s success is the site’s speed — search queries typically take a fraction of a second, and most of the company’s other services are usually very snappy as well (save for Gmail, which occasionally bogs down). Part of this speed can be attributed to the company’s obsession with minimalist design and its vast server farms, but you can be sure there’s no shortage of optimization that’s going on to make sure pages load as quickly as possible on the front end, too.

To help streamline its sites, Google has been using an internal tool called Page Speed, and starting today it’s opening up the tool to the developer community. The newly open-sourced tool is a Firefox plugin that integrates with Firebug, making suggestions on how to speed up your site based on best practices.

From the Google blog post:

For example, Page Speed automatically optimizes images for you, giving you a compressed image that you can use immediately on your web site. It also identifies issues such as JavaScript and CSS loaded by your page that wasn’t actually used to display the page, which can help reduce time your users spend waiting for the page to download and display.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Yahoo offers a similar tool for Firefox called YSlow, which is also meant to help developers streamline their websites.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

I have been very impressed with Andrew Sutherland of the Mozilla Messaging team (which is one reason that I have faith that I will dump Gmail for something he and the Messaging team come up with one day ;) and the visualizations that he is playing with are quite cool indeed. Seeing your email in different ways (not just in a table) can open the eyes.

Andrew is using Protovis “a visualization toolkit for JavaScript using the canvas element. It takes a graphical approach to data visualization, composing custom views of data with simple graphical primitives like bars and dots. These primitives are called marks, and each mark encodes data visually through dynamic properties such as color and position.”

There are some cool examples such as:

which produces .

Very cool indeed!

Allan Jardine has updated his popular DataTables rich data grid control. Allan told us what his aims were for this 1.4.1 release:

Being fairly happy with the options that DataTables presents to the end user, I’ve focused this release on providing tools for the developer. A plug-in API, non-destructive DOM manipulation (the biggest weak point of the old versions) and documentation are the major new features.

If you take a look at the new rich API you will see that can manipulate the data in the table, build filters, fetch remote data, and more.

What does DataTables feature again?

• Variable length pagination
• On-the-fly filtering
• Multi-coloum sorting with data type detection
• Smart handling of column widths
• Fully internationalisable
  UK, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Portuguese Brazilian (and more) translations provided
• State saving
• Hidden columns
• Dynamic creation of tables
• Ajax auto loading of data
• Custom DOM positioning
• Single column filtering
• Alternative pagination types
• Non-destructive DOM interaction
• Sorting column(s) highlighting
• Extensive plug-in support
  Sorting, type detection, API functions and pagination
• Fully themeable by CSS
• Solid documentation

By Jacob Gube

JavaScript is a powerful client-side scripting language used in many modern websites and Web applications. In the hands of a skilled Web developer, JavaScript can enhance the user’s experience of the website and provide rich interactive components and features. But even though syntactically simple in nature, JavaScript is often difficult to author because of the environment it runs in: the Web browser. JavaScript’s popularity is evident in emerging technologies, such as Adobe AIR, which use it as a supported language for creating desktop-based applications.

Below, you’ll find 50 excellent tools to help you achieve various tasks involved in authoring JavaScript code. You’ll find useful tools to speed up your coding processes, including debugging tools to hunt down places where your scripts break, unit testing and validation tools to test your scripts in various situations, security vulnerability scanners and code optimization tools to make sure your scripts are light as a feather.

You’ll also find a few new and alternative JavaScript and AJAX frameworks to help you explore options beyond the big names (i.e. MooTools, jQuery, YUI, Dojo, Prototype), in addition to useful scripts to help you accomplish a host of design and development tasks related to JavaScript.

Also, be sure to check out the following related posts:

• 75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques
• 60 AJAX- and Javascript Solutions For Professional Coding
• jQuery and JavaScript Coding: Examples and Best Practices
• 50 Extremely Useful And Powerful CSS Tools

JavaScript/AJAX Authoring Tools

• jQuery UI
  The jQuery UI allows you to design custom user interfaces for Web applications using the jQuery library. With jQuery UI, you can reduce the amount of code you write for common rich interactive features and website widgets. Be sure to check out the jQuery UI Demo page, which showcases some of the things you can accomplish using jQuery UI.

  

• Google Web Toolkit
  The Google Web Toolkit (commonly referred to as GWT) is a framework for developing complex and fully featured AJAX-based Web applications. You write front-end code in Java that is later compiled into optimized and cross-browser-friendly JavaScript. GWT puts the focus on Web application development by reducing the need for testing and debugging JavaScript for browser quirks.
• Jx
  Jx is a JavaScript library for creating graphical user interfaces written on top of the MooTools framework. Jx is distributed with an MIT license and is well documented. Numerous examples as well as thorough and well-organized API documentation is available on the website.

  

• Freestyle Webtop Toolkit
  Freestyle aims to reduce the complexity and time involved in deploying Web-based user interfaces by eliminating the separation of client-side and server-side development. With Freestyle, you focus on programming logic and UI design, and it handles the rest (i.e. cross-browser compatibility and DHTML and AJAX development).

  

• Script#
  Script# is an AJAX and JavaScript authoring tool that allows developers to write in C#. It also allows .NET developers to leverage their existing knowledge and provides powerful tools associated with the .NET framework.

  

• Aptana Jaxer
  Aptana Jaxer is the first “AJAX server” that allows developers to use their AJAX, HTML, JavaScript and DOM knowledge to create fully featured server-side-powered Web applications. With Jaxer, you can even write database queries in JavaScript syntax. Jaxer integrates very well with popular JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, Dojo and Ext JS.
• JS Regex Generator
  JS Regex Generator helps JavaScript developers write Regular Expressions for matching strings of text. This is commonly done for text-format validation, such as when checking if inputted text has the correct date and email format.

  

• WaveMaker
  WaveMaker is open-source software for complete Web application development and deployment. You can find a host of demo applications built and deployed using WaveMaker on the Demo Applications page.

  

Documentation Tools

• JSDoc Toolkit
  JSDoc Toolkit makes code documentation a breeze. Written in JavaScript, it helps developers automatically generate templates for JavaScript comments. It’s a great tool for managing large-scale applications developed by teams of developers who have different coding styles.
• jGrouseDoc
  jGrouseDoc is an open-source project distributed through Google Code under a modified BSD license. It lets developers document and manage their code comments using a format similar to Javadoc’s.

  

JavaScript Debugging Tools

• Firebug
  Firebug is an extremely popular and well-regarded front-end debugging tool. It has all the features you’d expect from a JavaScript debugging tool, such as the ability to set breakpoints in your code so that you can step through your script. For people developing outside of Mozilla-based browsers, check out Firebug Lite, which is a JavaScript library you can include in your Web pages to access some of the features of Firebug.

  

• Venkman JavaScript Debugger
  Venkman is Mozilla’s JavaScript debugger and an add-on for Gecko-based browsers. Venkman is a robust and fully featured JavaScript debugging environment, with a host of useful features and options, such as code profiling to inspect your script’s performance.

  

• Drosera
  Drosera is an excellent debugging tool for Safari and WebKit-based browsers.

  

• Opera Dragonfly
  Opera Dragonfly is a robust debugging environment for the Opera browser. Dragonfly allows you to view and inspect errors, debug your scripts and inspect and edit the DOM and CSS on the fly.
• NitobiBug
  NitobiBug is a browser-based JavaScript object logger and inspector. It runs on numerous browsers, including IE, Safari, Opera and Firefox. It is a powerful tool in helping developers build rich interactive AJAX applications.
• DebugBar
  DebugBar is an in-browser front-end debugger for Internet Explorer. Much like its Firefox counterparts, it has a robust set of features, such as DOM, JavaScript and cookie inspection. Be sure to check out Companion JS, which is a JavaScript debugging library to be used alongside DebugBar.

  

• Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar
  Similar to Firebug, IE Developer Toolbar is an in-browser tool to help you debug front-end code in Internet Explorer. It’s especially handy as a debugging and inspection alternative to Firefox when you’re developing and testing in IE.

JavaScript Testing and Validation Tools

• Test – JavaScriptMVC
  Test is a JavaScriptMVC component for easily setting up automated unit testing for JavaScript code. It lets you effectively test for DOM events (such as a key press or form submission), thereby lessening development time, oversight and errors associated with manual testing.

  

• JsUnit
  JsUnit is a popular unit testing framework for JavaScript code. It’s a JavaScript port from another unit testing framework for Java called JUnit. JsUnit allows you to write test cases and provides tools for automated code execution.
• JSLint
  JSLint is a Web-based tool for verifying your JavaScript code for errors. It has a ton of features and settings that you can use to customize verification algorithms to suit your needs.

  

• Crosscheck
  Crosscheck is an open-source testing framework for JavaScript. Crosscheck is unique because it works independent of environment: you can run tests outside of a Web browser, which avoids discrepancies that occur when testing in various browsers.
• YUI Test
  YUI Test is a suite of testing utilities that’s part of the YUI library developed by Yahoo!. It has numerous features, such as easy creation of test cases through an intuitive syntax, advanced failure detection and the ability to organize test cases by grouping them into test suites.

  

• J3Unit
  J3Unit is an excellent object-oriented unit-testing framework for JavaScript. It gives you a host of options for writing automated test cases and has three modes: Static Mode, Local Browser Mode and Remote Browser Mode.
• Regular Expression Tool
  The Regular Expression Tool is an online utility that allows you to test your RegEx code against a sample test. It’s a handy tool to have around when you want to quickly test the efficacy of your regular expressions in a variety of example texts.

  

• JavaScript Regular Expression Tester
  This is another handy tool for testing regular expressions within the Web browser.

  

• JSLitmus
  JSLitmus is a lightweight tool for creating JavaScript benchmarks and performance tests, using an intuitive API.

  

Security Tools

• AttackAPI
  AttackAPI is a framework for writing test cases of potential JavaScript exploits and vulnerabilities.
• jsfuzzer
  jsfuzzer is a fuzzing tool to help you write (and test for) attack vectors in JavaScript.

New and Alternative JavaScript and Ajax Development Frameworks

• Clean AJAX
  Clean AJAX is an open-source framework for creating AJAX-based applications. Check out the demo page to see it in action.

  

• SAJAX
  SAJAX is an excellent toolkit for developing AJAX-based applications. It supports PHP, Perl and Python.

  

• JavaScriptMVC
  JavaScriptMVC is a Web application framework based on the MVC software architectural pattern. It speeds up Web development processes and lays down best practices, maintainability and standards as principles in a project’s development.
• qooxdoo
  qooxdoo is a simple and intuitive AJAX application framework. Be sure to check out the Demo Browser, a Web-based application that allows you to view demos of qooxdoo at work.

  

• SimpleJS
  SimpleJS is a small and lightweight JavaScript library that provides developers with useful JavaScript functions for working with AJAX.

Image Manipulation and Graphing

• Reflection.js
  Reflection.js automatically adds reflections to your images unobtrusively. Also check out instant.js, a similar script that adds an image border and tilts images on a Web page.

  

• typeface.js
  typeface.js allows you to embed custom fonts on Web pages, freeing you from having to create images for HTML text.
• CanvasGraph.js
  CanvasGraph.js is a simple JavaScript library that lets you construct bar, line and pie charts using HTML’s canvas element.

  

• flot
  flot is a JavaScript library for plotting data and has been tested to work in most modern Web browsers.

  

• JavaScript Diagram Builder
  The JavaScript Diagram Builder is a JavaScript library that consists of a variety of objects and functions for constructing diagrams.

  

• The Dojo Charting Engine
  The Dojo Charting Engine is a robust utility for creating components for data visualization, written on top of the Dojo Toolkit.

Useful Utilities and JavaScript Scripts

• Processing.js
  Processing.js is a JavaScript port of Processing, the open-source data-visualization programming language. Check out examples that use Processing.js.
• AJAX Libraries API
  Google’s AJAX Libraries API allows you to serve popular JavaScript libraries using its CDN, which reduces the server load on your website.
• DamnIT
  DamnIT is an error-reporting service that allows you to gather feedback from beta testers after they’ve encountered a JavaScript error. This is perfect for live production testing and as a monitoring tool that helps you track errors and weak spots in your Web applications.
• ie7-js
  ie7-js is a JavaScript library that forces Internet Explorer to behave like a standards-based browser (like Firefox or Opera). It automatically fixes IE browser quirks and deviations from Web standards, as in the case of its box model.
• Lazy loader
  Lazy loader is a jQuery plug-in that delays the loading of images so that text content can load first, thereby making image-heavy pages load faster.

JavaScript Code Optimization and Minification Tools

• JS Minifier
  JS Minifier is a Web-based tool for shrinking your JavaScript code to make it as lightweight as possible.

  

• JSMIN
  JSMIN is a popular JavaScript minifier that removes unneeded characters (like spaces and tabs) and comments, thus reducing your script’s file size.
• YUI Compressor
  The YUI Compressor is another well-regarded JavaScript code-optimization tool developed by Yahoo!.
• Scriptalizer
  Scriptalizer is a helpful online tool for combining JavaScript files to reduce HTTP requests.

  

• ShrinkSafe
  ShrinkSafe is a compression tool that reduces JavaScript file sizes.
• SlickSpeed Selectors Test
  SlickSpeed is a Web page for comparing the performance of the DOM object selection of various popular frameworks like MooTools and jQuery.

  

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a Web developer, designer, and founder of Six Revisions, a blog on Web development and design. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow him on Twitter.

(al)

30 controls for RICH INTERFACE APPLICATION design and development.\r\n

I enjoy the US show Chuck (maybe because a geeky guy gets to hang with a beautiful woman? :) and there is a 3D episode to launch their new season. Our 2009 Ajax season relaunches an old favourite meme, the Ajax loaders (e.g. ajaxload.info) with a new 3D special.

Timur Gafforov has given us Preloaders which allows you to select size, speed, and from a set of 3D spinners. Make your users wait in style! :)

by Noura Yehia

JavaScipt libraries have made huge leaps and bounds in helping developers write code and develop products more quickly. jQuery is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks, with powerful tools that improve the user’s interaction with Web applications. jQuery has an additional advantage in that it allows developers to select elements on a page using CSS-like syntax.

To help you take it up a notch, we share below some methods that can help you give visitors to your website an amazing user experience. Here are over 45 impressive jQuery plug-ins and techniques that have been recently created and that could make the development of your next website an easier and more interesting experience than the last.

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

• jQuery and JavaScript Coding: Examples and Best Practices
• 75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques
• 80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding
• 60 More AJAX- and Javascript Solutions For Professional Coding

Dynamic Content

1. Build A Login Form With jQuery
In this tutorial, we’ll create a sliding panel, that slides in to reveal more content, using JQuery to animate the height of the panel. In this case, we will be creating a hypothetical login for the new tutsplus area that’s coming soon.

2. Spoiler Revealer with jQuery
A simple technique that hides some content first and fades it in once a link is clicked.

3. AJAX Upload
This AJAX file upload plug-in allows users to easily upload multiple files without having to refresh the page. In addition, you can use any element to trigger the file selection window. The plug-in creates a semi-transparent file input screen over the button you specify, so when a user clicks on the button, the normal file selection window is shown. After the user selects a file, the plug-in submits the form that contains the file input to an iFrame. So it isn’t true AJAX but provides the same user experience.

4. FCBKcomplete
Give your users fancy Facebook-like dynamic inputs, with auto-complete and pre-added values.

5. Create Accessible Charts Using Canvas and jQuery
This tool is proof that you can use the <canvas> element to illustrate HTML table data. The idea is a good one: putting the data in a table allows it to remain accessible, while the chart can be shown for visual enhancement.

Form Manipulation

6. Radio Button and Check Box Replacement
This jQuery tool replaces radio buttons and check boxes with a more appealing display.

7. Submit a Form without a Page Refresh

8. jQuery AJAX Contact Form
Here is a quick and easy way to make a jQuery AJAX contact form with a “honeypot” to foil email bots, load success and error messages dynamically without leaving the page and provide descriptive error messages detailing why submitted values have failed validation.

9. Simple jQuery Form Validation
This jQuery form shows live form-input validators both server-side and browser-side.

Navigation Menus

10. jQuery Context Menu
A context menu plug-in for jQuery that features easy implementation, keyboard shortcuts, CSS styling and control methods.

11. Kwicks for jQuery
Kwicks for jQuery started off as a port of the incredibly attractive MooTools framework, but has evolved into a highly customizable and versatile widget.

12. jQuery iPod-style Drilldown Menu
“We created an iPod-style drilldown menu to help users traverse hierarchical data quickly and with control. It’s especially helpful when organizing large data structures that don’t translate well into traditional dropdown or fly-out menus.”

13. jQuery File Tree
The jQuery File Tree is a configurable AJAX file-browser plug-in for jQuery. You can create a customized, fully-interactive file tree with as little as one line of JavaScript code.

14. How to Create a MooTools Home Page-Inspired Navigation Effect
In this tutorial, you’ll recreate the same effect seen in MooTools’s menu, but in jQuery!

15. CSS Sprites2
This tutorial demonstrates how to implement inline CSS Sprites2 using jQuery.

Manipulating Content

16. jQuery books widget
With some custom JavaScript and jQuery magic you can create some interesting widgets. A good way to demonstrate this functionality is by building a browsable Amazon.com books widget.

17. Text Size Slider
This tutorial explains how to use a slider to control the text size of an article on a page. This lets the user control exactly the size that suits them, and is also a pretty impressive feature to have on a site.

18. Pagination
Create navigational elements: when you have a large number of items, you can group them into pages and present navigational elements that allow users to move from one page to another.

19. Coda-Slider
As with the last tool, groups items together using navigational elements that allow users to move from one page to another.

20. Creating a Slick Auto-Playing Featured-Content Slider
If you love the Coda-Slider plug-in for jQuery, then you will find this plug-in very useful for displaying lots of content in a small area. This nice plug-in adds some features not found in the original Coda-Slider, such as slowly cycling through panels, auto-playing different types of custom content. An arrow indicator serves as a visual indication of which panel you are currently viewing.

• Demo can be found here.
• Download files here.

21. haccordion
A simple horizontal accordion plug-in for jQuery.

Tabular Data and Grids

22. Table Row Checkbox Toggle
This tool generically adds a toggle function to any table row you specify based on a CSS class name. It will, by default, toggle on any check boxes within that table row.

23. Tablesorter
Tablesorter is a jQuery plug-in that turns a standard HTML table with <th> and <td> tags into a sortable table without the need for page refreshes. Tablesorter can successfully parse and sort many types of data, including linked data, in a cell.

24. TableEditor
TableEditor provides flexible in-place editing of HTML tables. User-defined handler functions can easily be dropped in to update, for example, a data source via an AJAX request.

25. Scrollable HTML Table
This JavaScript code can be used to convert ordinary HTML tables into scrollable ones.

Lightbox Techniques

26. Revealing Photo Slider
Learn how to create a thumbnail photo gallery, where clicking a button reveals the entire photo and more information about that photo.

27. FancyBox
FancyBox was born to automatically scale large images to fit in windows, adding a nice drop-shadow under the zoomed item. It can be used to group related items and add navigation between them (using a pre-loading function). FancyBox is totally customizable through settings and CSS.

28. Facebox Image and Content Viewer
Facebox is a lightweight Facebook-style Lightbox that can display images, divs, and even entirely remote pages (via AJAX) inline on a page and on demand. It uses the compact jQuery library as its engine, unlike Lightbox v2.0, which uses Prototype.

29. jQuery.popeye
jQuery.popeye is a plug-in that transforms an unordered list of images into a simple image gallery. When an image is clicked, it enlarges Lightbox-style. The images are displayed in a box with “Previous” and “Next” controls, and information about the images can be included.

Image Galleries and Viewers

30. Simple Controls Gallery
Simple Controls Gallery rotates and displays each image by fading it into view over the previous one, with navigation controls that pop up when the mouse hovers over the gallery. The controls allow the user to play, pause or jump to a specific image in the gallery.

31. Agile Carousel
This jQuery plug-in allows you to easily create a custom carousel. Use the jQuery UI to enable many different types of transition. The plug-in uses PHP to call images from the folder you specify. Configure many different options including controls, slide timer length, easing type, transition type and more!

Browser Tweaks

32. Setting Equal Heights with jQuery
A script to equalize the heights of boxes within the same container and create a tidy grid.

33. jQuery IE6 PNG Transparency Fix
Another IE6 PNG fix that uses jQuery selectors to automatically fix all PNG images on a page.

34. BGI frame
This tool helps ease the pain of dealing with IE z-index issues. You can find a demo here.

35. Fix Overflow
IE puts scroll bars inside overflowing elements, and if an element is only one line, the scroll bar will cover it. This plug-in fixes that issue.

36. Lazy Load
Lazy Load delays the loading of images below the fold on long pages. As the user scrolls down, the images are loaded as needed. Check out the demo here.

37. Maxlength
It’s a fairly common design practice to limit the number of characters a user can input in a field while giving feedback on how many spaces are left. This plug-in automates that task.

Animation Effects

38. Scrollable
Scrollable is a flexible and lightweight (3.9 KB) jQuery plug-in for creating scrollable content. Scrollable items can contain any HTML, such as text, images, forms, video or any combination of them. You can make items scroll horizontally or vertically and decide how many items are visible at once.

39. jQuery Fading Menu – Replacing Content
“Instead of thinking about CSS as page layout and a way to style your page when it loads, you can use in animation and change it on-the-fly to react to events that happen on your page. Take for example a menu. You can take the “click” event that happens when clicking on a menu to do lots of stuff.”

40. Build an Animated Cartoon Robot with jQuery
This effect simulates a faux 3-D animated background reminiscent of old-school side-scrolling video games (and not unlike the parallax effect). This effect is created by layering several empty divs over each other, with transparent PNGs as background images. The backgrounds are animated at different speeds using jQuery.

41. Flip
Flip is a plug-in for jQuery that “flips” page elements in four directions. Compatible with Firefox 2+, Internet Explorer 6+, Safari 3.1 (for Windows) and Google Chrome.

• Download files here.

42. Use jQuery for Background Image Animations
Animate your menu whenever a user hovers over an item with this effect.

Image Manipulation

43. Jcrop
Jcrop is the quick and easy way to add image-cropping functionality to your Web application. It combines the ease of use of a typical jQuery plug-in with a powerful cross-platform DHTML cropping engine that is faithful to familiar desktop graphics applications.

44. jQZoom
JQZoom is a JavaScript image magnifier that makes it really easy to magnify what you want. It is easy to customize and works on all modern browsers.

Miscellaneous

45. Date Range Picker
A rich date-range widget that uses the jQuery UI’s date picker and some additional custom interaction.

46. Sortable Lists
Unordered lists are commonly used to structure a website’s navigation. Having the ability to re-order such lists would be extremely useful. Here is a method to easily save and reload the list element order without getting lost as the page is refreshed.

47. Amazing Music Player Using Mouse Gestures and Hotkeys
Learn how to create an amazing music player, coded in XHTML and jQuery, that makes use of mouse gestures and hotkeys. You can click and drag the mouse to interact with the music player’s interface or use directional keys and the space bar instead of the mouse.

48. Script for Tracking Outbound Links in Google Analytics with jQuery
This code snippet uses Google Analytics and jQuery to automatically track outbound links. This interesting script enhances behavior by comparing the link’s domain to the current page’s domain and, if they are different, triggering the behavior. This is helpful when using a CMS or other tool that generates full URLs, including the “http://,” instead of relative ones.

<script type="text/javascript">
	$('#content a:not(.popupwindow)').filter(function() {
		var theHref = this;
		if (theHref.hostname && theHref.hostname !== location.hostname) {
			$(theHref).not(".noAutoIcon").addClass("offSite");
			$(theHref).not(".noAutoLink").attr('target','_blank').bind('click keypress', function(event) {
				var code=event.charCode || event.keyCode;
				if (!code || (code && code == 13)) {
					if(pageTracker){
						var fixedLink = this.href;
						fixedLink = fixedLink.replace(/https?:\/\/(.*)/,"$1");
						fixedLink = '/outgoing/'   fixedLink;
						pageTracker._trackPageview(fixedLink);
					};
				};
			});
		};
	});
</script>

49. jGrowl
jGrowl is a jQuery plug-in that delivers unobtrusive messages within the browser, similar to the way that OS X’s Growl Framework works.

Related posts

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

• jQuery and JavaScript Coding: Examples and Best Practices
• 75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques
• 80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding
• 60 More AJAX- and Javascript Solutions For Professional Coding

About the author

Noura Yehia is a Web designer and blogger who can be found at Noupe and Devsnippets. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow her on Twitter.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the jQuery Project team

Back on January 14, 2006, a brash, young and talented developer named John Resig put out a personal project to the OSS world and hoped it could benefit *someone*. Little did he know that 3 years later, his side project would become one of the most influential frameworks for developing JavaScript-based applications. Today, the jQuery project turns 3 years old which, considering the churn rate for open source projects, is a monumental achievement. So it makes sense that on the project’s 3rd birthday, the team has announced the release of jQuery v1.3, the latest and greatest release of jQuery which includes the new Sizzle selector engine.

Along with the inclusion of Sizzle, jQuery v1.3 includes a bevvy of new features:

• Live Events: Event delegation with a jQuery twist
• jQuery Event Overhaul: Completely rewired to simplify event handling.
• HTML Injection Rewrite: Lightning-fast HTML appending.
• Offset Rewrite: Super-quick position calculation.
• No More Browser Sniffing: Using feature detection to help jQuery last for many more years to come.

The details of the release can be found via the release notes.

In addition to that, Remy Sharp donated a new dynamic API browser to the jQuery project which makes searching the jQuery API extremely easy:

The API browser includes:

• All the latest jQuery and jQuery UI documentation.
• The ability to mark pages as favorites for those pages you keep wanting to return to.
• Syntax highlighting in the code examples
• Live running of examples within the browser
• Links to edit and experiment with the code examples

In addition, Tane Piper & Remy worked together to provide an AIR app version of the browser so you can view the API locally.

The biggest update though is that the jQuery projects (i.e. jQuery & jQuery UI) will be part of the Software Freedom Conservancy thus making the projects true non-profit endeavor and providing a number of benefits to both the project and the jQuery community including:

1. It allows the current project members to continue to manage the projects and maintain ultimate responsibility for the direction of current and future efforts.
2. It allows the projects to be considered a true non-profit efforts allowing us to be able to accept donations and contributions without incurring tremendous personal financial liability.
3. The copyright of the code will be assigned to the conservancy thus ensuring that no single person will own contributions or assets of the project.
4. It may allow corporations to write off time when an employee contributes to a project.
5. Most importantly, it ensures that the jQuery projects will always be open and free software

With so many new individuals & corporations contributing to the project, doing this became a big priority to protect the investments made by the jQuery community.

This is a lot of great news for jQuery developers and here’s wishing jQuery a happy 3rd birthday.

Noupe has another nice roundup, this time they are showing 10 Smart JavaScript Techniques For Manipulating Content.

They share nice content views with demos and how to content. Included in the list is:

1. jQuery pageSlide: jQuery pageSlide is a plugin for jQuery that slides the viewable webpage off-screen, revealing and populating a secondary interaction pane. It may be used in a similar manner to Lightbox, where screen real estate and centralization of the user experience are a concern.
2. Create a simple ul list with a nice slide-out effect for li elements: We want to obtain this effect: when an user clicks on a link (”Hide”), the related
3. element disappear with a nice animated slide out effect. A simple way to implement an animated “disappear” effect using MooTools slideOut()
4. Portfolio Layout Idea Using jQuery: Benjamin Sterling created an interesting portfolio layout and added a nice easing method to the main content panel using easeOutQuad and easeInQuad using jQuery easing plugin.
5. Creating a Slick Auto-Playing Featured Content Slider: Niall Doherty’s Coda Slider inspired lot of designers and got them started quickly designing around it. Chris Coyier created a Slick Auto-Playing Featured Content Slider using Coda Slider plugin pretty much “out of the box” and added to it.
6. Easy Image or Content Slider: Easy Slider enables images or any content to slide horizontally or vertically on click. It is configurable with css alone.
7. mooSlide: mooSlide is nice replacement of the common “lightbox” module. It has some interesting options to influence the look and behaviour of the sliding box.
8. jQuery.SerialScroll: jQuery.SerialScroll allows you to easily animate any series of elements, by sequentially scrolling them.
9. Agile Carousel: Agile Carousel allows you to easily create a custom carousel.
10. Animated JavaScript Slideshow: This extremely lightweight JavaScript animated slideshow script includes a number of cool features to to style your content: description support, link support, no naming restrictions, portrait image support, graceful degradation and active thumbnail status.
11. Sexy Lightbox 2: Sexy Lightbox 2 is a sexier and lighter clone of the classic Lightbox. Supports displaying images and HTML elements.
12. UI.Layout: Was was inspired by the extJS border-layout. The UI.Layout plug-in can create any UI look you want – from simple headers or sidebars, to a complex application with toolbars, menus, help-panels, status bars, sub-forms, etc.