HTML, XHTML, and CSS All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Improving JavaScript with jQuery

In This Chapter

• Downloading and including the jQuery library

• Using component selectors

• Handling events

When building AJAX-enabled Web sites, it can be extremely tedious to write all the JavaScript you need to do even the simplest things. A good way around this is to use a JavaScript library. These are simply JavaScript code fragments with a number of useful functions built in.

Many JavaScript libraries are out there, and none of them write the code for you. What JavaScript libraries do is make complex JavaScript tasks easier to perform. They give you functions to encapsulate complex code into simpler function calls.

JavaScript libraries will vastly increase your productivity and allow you to do a lot more fun and impressive things in much less time. They'll also make it much easier for you to maintain your code because you don't have to rebuild basic functionality. You can concentrate instead on creating a program that solves a particular problem.

Tip

jQuery is a JavaScript library, so to use it, you must be familiar with JavaScript and DOM programming. Check out Book IV if you need a refresher on these topics.

Introducing jQuery

For this minibook, I use the jQuery JavaScript library to enhance JavaScript. jQuery has good documentation, high community involvement, and is easy to use.

JavaScript libraries

There are many other JavaScript libraries besides jQuery. I chose jQuery for this book because of its good documentation, ease of use, shallow learning ...