jQuery UI 1.5 Released, Focus On Consistent API And Effects
Posted June 9, 2008 at 8:17 AM by Ben Nadel
The jQuery team just released UI 1.5. They took the existing interface and effects library and totally simplified them, reducing the number of exposed method calls by 95%. I have been a big fan of jQuery for a long time, primarily for their amazing selectors, DOM traversal, and simple effects. To be honest, I have not done much with the UI in the past; however, now that my projects are getting significantly more dynamic and I am starting to concentrate on how to deliver the most compelling user experience, I think it's time to really start leveraging this new and powerful UI library.
I think one of the things that is really going to set the jQuery UI apart from the other Javascript libraries is their new ThemeRoller site. The ThemeRoller site allows you to completely customize the look and feel of the jQuery UI widgets such that they are aligned directly with your application's branded look and feel. Finally, people can leverage the power of these dynamic interface widgets while keeping the uniform look of a well architected site.
To me, the rebuilding of the UI library and the ThemeRoller site demonstrate more than just technical excellence in the jQuery team - they represent a genuine effort by the jQuery team to keep their fan-base happy. jQuery is really the only Javascript library that I ever read about that is always interacting with its community of programmers and trying to find ways to make jQuery users ever happier.
Special thanks has to be given to the Liferay staff, who invested countless hours into the development of the new UI website, and with whom the jQuery team worked closely together to stabilize jQuery UI for all kinds of enterprise situations.
Reader Comments
This is incredibly exciting, it's great to see jQuery evolving the way it is. And additionally, the timing on this release could not have been more perfect, this should allow me to integrate it right into the project I'm working on.
On that note, and I hope I do not take the comments too off topic by asking this - but what would you recommend using for your request, cfajaxproxy or jQuery itself (the jquery.ajax function)?
Now, without further ado, time to go test the release out!
@Tim,
I have really only used jQuery's AJAX features. I have not done much with CFAJAX. I have working on a highly dynamic project right now that makes heavy use of the jQuery AJAX features and its been great.
@Tim Use JQuery. It might not as fast to develop from a standing start, but is definitely better longer term, and you have a lot more control.
@Ben,
Thank you for the extremely quick reply. I had previously used an implementation of the prototype/scriptaculous library together with the cfajaxproxy tag, but am now switching my projects over to using jQuery and remaining with the jQuery.ajax function as it fits my purposes much better and seems to integrate with Coldfusion somewhat nicer. That might just be a personal thing, however.
@Neil,
I appreciate it, and am certainly beginning to notice the benefit you point out.
I like this kind of tool as I am color blind (or colour blind being a Brit). I've learned to live with it but using numbers works well for me;-)
Combined with colour palette sites like http://www.colorcombos.com it means I can even manage to build things my wife thinks look half decent.
@Simon,
That's a good point; I never thought about it from that angle before. I am glad this works well for you.
ThemeRoller - wow, thats it :-)
Ben, thanks a lot for your hint. I'm actually playing aroung with jQuery and the demos/themes overthere are very helpful to get to the next level...
@Peter,
Great man. Have fun with it.
