Jappler Recommends: jQuery

If you ever wanted to do something cool (slideshow, lightbox, accordion, pagination, table sorting, drop down menus etc) – please do yourself a favor and look at jQuery and all the great jQuery plugins that are available. About a year or two ago I really liked some of the different javascript libraries (YUI, prototype, etc) but over the last several months 99% of all my projects have required some sort of functionality that made me look at and then use jQuery.

Why jQuery? Unlike some of the other libraries, jQuery is very lightweight and does not suffer from a lot of bloat. You can also find a number of well documented plugins to do just about anything. You also have a great deal of UI controls and widgets that are available by using jQuery UI. Did I mention the documentation – it is really great. The learning curve is not steep – and once you do a few smaller projects – your comfort level with jQuery will skyrocket.

So next time you decide to do something to add some extra pizazz into your web site – remember, take a look at jQuery first!