JavaScript® and AJAX for Dummies®

Chapter 10. Improving JavaScript and AJAX with jQuery

In This Chapter

• Downloading and including the jQuery library

• Making an AJAX request with jQuery

• Using component selectors

• Adding events to components

• Creating a simple content management system with jQuery

JavaScript has amazing capabilities. It's useful on its own and when you add AJAX, it becomes incredibly powerful. However, JavaScript can be tedious. There's a lot to remember, and it can be a real pain to handle multiple platform issues. Some tasks (like AJAX) are a bit complex and require a lot of steps. Regardless of the task, there are always browser compatibility issues to deal with.

AJAX libraries have come to the rescue, and the jQuery library in particular is a powerful tool for simplifying AJAX. This chapter explains what JavaScript Libraries can do and introduces you to one of the most popular libraries in current use.

Introducing JavaScript Libraries

For these reasons, Web programmers began to compile commonly used functions into reusable libraries. These libraries became more powerful over time, and some of them have now become fundamental to Web development.

As these libraries became more powerful, the libraries not only added AJAX capabilities, but many library developers also add features to JavaScript/DOM programming that were once available only in traditional programming languages. Many of these libraries allow for a new visual aesthetic as well as enhanced technical capabilities. In fact, most applications considered ...