Skip to main content
Ben Nadel at cf.Objective() 2014 (Bloomington, MN) with: Dave Ferguson and Simon Free and Tim Cunningham and Jason Dean
Ben Nadel at cf.Objective() 2014 (Bloomington, MN) with: Dave Ferguson ( @dfgrumpy ) Simon Free ( @simonfree ) Tim Cunningham ( @TimCunningham71 ) Jason Dean ( @JasonPDean )

jQuery 1.4 Released - Hella Sweeeet!

By on

Today, the jQuery team released jQuery 1.4 to the world with much anticipated excitement. People have been Tweeting about it all day long, but I've had to get my work done; as such, it was an extremely awesome and yet thoroughly frustrating day. Before I go home, I wanted to take a moment and expression my jQuery enthusiasm artistically.

If you want to find out more about the jQuery 1.4 release, checkout press release on www.jquery14.com. Also, check out the hot, new API website, api.jquery.com.

Reader Comments

167 Comments

The delay method looks tight! But much more importantly, "better support for Java applets". I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Java applets are going to be HUGE, in the future.

11 Comments

Delay is alright, but there was always .animate({opacity: 1}). I'm still looking forward to something a little more generalized that I can use like a pause() in other languages. jQuery.proxy does look extremely useful at saving a few lines of code around bindings.

They've not done a great job of highlighting some of the new features, here's a link to a good article: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/jquery-1-4-released-the-15-new-features-you-must-know/

I've dropped $25 into their paypal account, hoping I get one of the e-books that I don't already own.

167 Comments

Isn't delay for sequencing and orchestrating time-based animation? Like making element A fade out, and then 1/2 second later element B fade in a simpler and conciser way than managing setTimeouts or termination triggers yourself? Wouldn't .animate({ opacity:1 }) just animate the opacity in when the line of code executes? I haven't had time to do much fancy interface animation with jQuery yet but this seems like it really empowers and simplifies richer interfaces and transitions.

14 Comments

Looks sweet!

Just loaded it into a couple of intranet developments we're doing and the pages with heavy jQuery ... loading times have sped up 10 fold!

Damn I love jQuery :D

50 Comments

At least we now know that the performance hit from method chaining is infinitesimally smaller than manipulating the DOM. Thus, I approve this picture's PSA.

15,643 Comments

This is pretty exciting. Now, I just need to make time to look at the API and read the docs!

@Drew,

Thanks for the link; James did a great job rounding it up.

11 Comments

@David McGuigan,

By having jQuery run an animation for set amount of seconds, it will hold up the rest of the chain until the animation is complete. Since the action of the animation is not doing anything, you are in effect having jQuery sit in a loop of nothing for the time specified.

I actually spent a good bit of time yesterday reviewing animation and was not able to craft my own delay out of it. It feels like I've myself somehow by looking at the new delay() function.

167 Comments

@Drew:
Ah, thanks. I'd assumed that it just used Web Workers ( or whatever Javascript's multithreading technology is called ) under the hood to run animations simultaneously. Very good to know.

34 Comments

Ben,

Would like to commend you on your ability to succintly present complex topics in clear easy to understand visuals.

Now I need to just explain to the wife the importance :D

I believe in love. I believe in compassion. I believe in human rights. I believe that we can afford to give more of these gifts to the world around us because it costs us nothing to be decent and kind and understanding. And, I want you to know that when you land on this site, you are accepted for who you are, no matter how you identify, what truths you live, or whatever kind of goofy shit makes you feel alive! Rock on with your bad self!
Ben Nadel