Learning jQuery

Someone on the jQuery Google Group yesterday asked about how to display a border around elements on hover. Here is a quick script I wrote to achieve that effect:

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A long time ago I built myself a little bookmarklet to load jQuery on pages that don’t already have it. The idea was to allow me to play around with any page on the web, using jQuery in the Firebug (and now Safari or IE8) console. I blogged about it, got lots of great feedback, and then blogged about an improved version. Now that a lot more great feedback has come through the comments of the updated bookmarklet post, I’ve decided to update it one more time.

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Most if not all of the jQuery plugins out there have some level of customization. But very few of the plugin authors have mastered the very particular art involved.

Achieving the “optimum level” of customization is a bit of a balancing act… go too far either way and you’ve got an unusable plugin!

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Since the release of jQuery 1.3 a month and a half ago, I’ve been keeping my eye on any troubles that people have had with their upgrades. Fortunately, most people have had no problems at all. For those who have, the issues have almost always been in one of three areas. Identifying these areas and adjusting any legacy scripts ahead of time will go a long way toward ensuring a smooth transition to jQuery 1.3.x.

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The .append() method is perhaps the most misused of all jQuery methods. While an extremely useful and easy method to work with, it dramatically affects the performance of your page. When misused, the .append() method can cripple your JavaScript code’s performance. When used well, it’ll keep your script humming along.

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One of the biggest concerns I’ve heard mentioned from users of the Prototype library about jQuery is the lack of support for various array methods. The robust features Prototype provides for arrays is of great benefit to developers that do a lot of array manipulation in their JavaScript.

However, I find that after moving to jQuery, I do less array manipulation than I had done with Prototype. Perhaps jQuery has altered my development pattern so I no longer need array manipulation, or perhaps I have shifted most of my data manipulation to the server. Whatever the case, I have only on occasion missed the Prototype array methods.

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