Modern web application user interface design requires rapid development and proven results. jQuery UI, a trusted suite of official plug-ins for the jQuery JavaScript library, gives you a solid platform on which to build rich and engaging interfaces with maximum compatibility and stability, and minimum time and effort.
jQuery UI has a series of ready-made, great-looking user interface widgets and a comprehensive set of core interaction helpers designed to be implemented in a consistent and developer-friendly way. With all this, the amount of code that you need to write personally to take a project from conception to completion is drastically reduced.
Specially revised for version 1.7 of jQuery UI, this book has been written to maximize your experience with the library by breaking down each component and walking you through examples that progressively build upon your knowledge, taking you from beginner to advanced usage in a series of easy-to-follow steps.
In this book, you'll learn how each component can be initialized in a basic default implementation and then see how easy it is to customize its appearance and configure its behavior to tailor it to the requirements of your application. You'll look at the configuration options and the methods exposed by each component's API to see how these can be used to bring out the best of the library.
Events play a key role in any modern web application if it is to meet the expected minimum requirements of interactivity and responsiveness, and each chapter will show you the custom events fired by the component covered and how these events can be intercepted and acted upon.
How the brand-new CSS framework styles each of the library components
Organizing different sections of related content as tabs and accordions to save space on your page while maximizing its content
Displaying messages, images, and interactive content like forms using the dialog widget
Using sliders for volume and color control of your applications by dynamically scrolling left and right, displaying different ranges
Allowing your site visitors to select dates from the calendar using the date picker widget
Adding an attractive and effective deterministic progress bar to give visitors essential feedback on how much longer a process has left to complete
Providing a drag-and-drop mechanism to let users directly rearrange elements around the page
Making a range of elements of a group selectable and taking collective actions on them
Creating a page with content boxes that can be sorted into various positions to suit the visitor s personal preference
Adding flair to your actions with animation effects