Practical jQuery

Practical jQuery is your step-by-step guide to using jQuery in the real world, taking you from downloading jQuery all the way to extending it by writing your own plug-ins and testing the DOM using QUnit. jQuery is one of today’s most popular JavaScript web application development frameworks and libraries. While getting started with the tool is easy, sometimes it's not as simple to completely realize the power and automation that it can bring to your development work—and that's especially the case when you're in the middle of a project, up against a deadline.

Using this book, you will learn how to use jQuery’s powerful DOM manipulation tools to dynamically update content on your site. You will be able to extend jQuery’s capabilities by writing your own plugins on top of the framework, animate elements, build your own jQuery elements, employ best practices, and avoid common errors. Practical jQuery teaches you how, with jQuery, you can unit test and refactor your code. You’ll see how expressive yet concise jQuery’s code is and how much quicker and efficient it is to develop with jQuery.

Get a fundamental perspective on how jQuery works, how to understand, select, and build your own plug-ins, and how to make sure your projects run at the peak of their potential performance using Practical jQuery today.

What you’ll learn

• Use jQuery’s powerful manipulation tools to dynamically update your website’s content.
• Animate content and build your own image slider with jQuery’s animation tools.
• Extend the library by writing your own custom plugins.
• Use plugins created by others in the community and integrate them into your website.
• Refactor and test DOM manipulation using QUnit.

Who this book is for

Practical jQuery is for the web developers confident with HTML and CSS and familiar with basic JavaScript but struggling to get to grips with jQuery. Practical jQuery is great for the developer wanting to enhance their skillset and want to code quicker and efficiently.

About the Authors

Mukund Chaudhary is enamored of technology and keeps himself up-to-date through avid reading. In his leisure time, he can be found reading articles on current affairs and technologies alike. A perfectionist, he is a product manager by profession and is quite strict when it comes to delivery deadlines.

Jose Dieguez Castro is a senior system administrator, working currently as a freelance consultant, who has worked in a wide range of projects—from small to large infrastructures, in the private and public sectors. When asked about his specialty, he answers: "Get the job done." He also likes to think of himself as a developer, who cares too much about software libre.