Friday, February 02, 2007

I've always had a bit of an issue with Javascript and I don't know why because I'm a competent Actionscript programmer but there is something about the DOM that has always had me searching google for other people's code rather than starting from scratch. Well all that has changed thanks to JQuery, now I'm not going to get into an argument about which framework is best I like the smooth animation in MooTools and the ability to create a build with only the functionality you need is very well thought out and I know Prototype has just undergone a bit of a makeover...but I just like JQuery's simplicity and syntax. I like the fact that you can use css selectors or XPath to target an element, I have to admit I don't use the latter as much at the moment as the css selectors are more inline with the way I think but the more I use it I'm sure I'll find a need!

The documentation is excellent and there are a couple of extra visual aids by the way of Jörn Zaefferer's JQuery API Browser (who has also made a few excellent plugins, see http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/) and also the other documentation helper Visual Jquery.

And now, thanks to JQuery I have just ventured into my first bit of Ajax! Woohoo, it makes it so easy I can hardly believe it, I'm not doing anything difficult just submitting a sign up form but it makes the particular project I'm working on so much more elegant without the need for a page refresh to load the form and submit it. I am using a modified version of the Greybox plugin to overlay and animate an iframe onto my page with a form inside, perfect! I can't recommend JQuery enough it has completely changed the way I think about html development.

Jon 12:28 PM Permalink