JavaScript® and AJAX for Dummies®

Chapter 12. Using the jQuery User Interface Toolkit

In This Chapter

• Exploring the jQuery user interface

• Installing the UI and templates

• Adding date pickers, dialog boxes, and icons

• Dragging and dropping

• Working with scrollbars

• Building a sorting mechanism

• Creating an accordion page

• Building a tab-based interface

The jQuery library is an incredible tool for simplifying JavaScript programming. The library is so popular and powerful that developers began adding new features to make it even more useful. Among the most important of these is the jQuery UI (user interface) framework. This tool adds these welcome features to Web development:

• New user interface elements: As a modern user interface tool, HTML is missing some important tools. Most modern visual languages include built-in support for devices such as scrollbars, dedicated date pickers, and multiple tab tools. jQuery UI adds these features and more.

• Advanced user interaction: The jQuery widgets give users new and exciting ways to interact with your page. Using the UI toolkit, you can easily let users make selections by dragging and dropping elements and expanding and contracting parts of the page.

• Flexible theme templates: jQuery UI includes a template mechanism that controls the visual look and feel of your elements. You can choose from dozens of prebuilt themes or use a tool to build your own particular look. You can reuse this template library to manage the look of your other page elements, too (not just the ones defined by the library). ...