jQuery-Magazine.com

The Experiement

Editor — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 22:10:51 +0000

Now we have tried this twice. The idea may be enticing, but we can all agree that I have nothing of interest to offer.

Some time in the next few days this domain name will be shifting to a placeholder with Google ads and a little note that says that, for a paltry sum, you can have jQuery-Magazine.com and do something splendid with it. I will be content to learn at your feet.

jFormer – Better Forms

Editor — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:02:11 +0000

There are plenty of tutorials on how to create, style and enhance forms and jQuery has very nice UI form components, but I wanted to feature a nice, simple plug-in that will help you to put out better form quickly, especially those sweet “multi-page” style forms.

This plug-in has decent docs, includes nice features like capchas, cookies for resume, and several common templates. The built-in styles are not spectacular, but it is just plain CSS that you can easily edit to suit, which is usually more useful than a fully themed set that doesn’t fit with your site. It is good to have a quick tool like this is your kit in case you need to add a quick, but professional, form to a site.

Ready to Learn and Implement jQuery?

Editor — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:09:26 +0000

Today we are going back to basics. jQuery is an amazing tool for web site owners, designers and developers to use for enhancing the user experience (UX) of their site without having to deal much with the differences in the way various browsers work with Javascript. jQuery just works and there are thousands of plugins, widgets, and feature implementations already written, most of which are freely available.

The series of articles I’m recommending here are on Sitepoint and are being written by Earle Castledine. They are excerpted from his book, jQuery: Novice to Ninja, a very helpful tome for first-time jQuery users. This series of articles, two of which are complete, will take the novice a long way toward being good at implementing progressive enhancement on their web sites.

Databases

Editor — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:04:19 +0000

Eventually, no matter what your specialty as designer or developer, you’ll need to save and retrieve data. Thanks fully, we are beginning to get to the point where that does not necessarily mean a bunch of server-side programming and MySQL work. With the new generation of “NoSQL” databases and Javascript getting to the point that it can work on both the client and the server, data is getting easier to work with in the web application.

CouchDB is a nice implementation of the NoSQL concept and is gaining popularity quickly. Because the user can access their data offline, CouchDB is a perfect fit for the handheld device world where internet connections come and go. This tutorial from our friends at nettuts+ is a great intro to the features and a first implementation.

Addy Osmani

Editor — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:06:52 +0000

Building a brand for yourself is like a full time job. Here is one guy who has done a great job of it. By cartooning himself and pumping out great content relentlessly, @addyosmani has become a well-known name in the jQuery community. His Twitter profile blares, “jQuery Evangelist, jQuery Docs & Bug Triage team and I also love writing about jQuery at http://www.addyosmani.com“

You may, at first, think that he is over the top. Once you have read his stuff for a few days you will realize he is the real deal. For instance, in the past few days he has published an update to his free ebook, “Essential JavaScript Design Patterns“, has given us Tools for jQuery Application Architecture, has updated his Offline jQuery Learning Kit to 1.5.1, and has taken on the hot topic of of whether jQuery is good for full-scale Application Development.

It is easy to see why over 20,000 people follow him on Twitter or Facebook or RSS. Content is king, and Addy’s site is rich in great content for web devs and designers. Following his Twitter feed will give you a daily dose of gold nuggets.