jQuery UI v1.5 Released, Focus on Consistent API and Effects

This major release of jQuery UI is very important as it completely changes the way you will design and develop.

Download jQuery UI v1.5

Themeroller

Themeroller allows you to to pick up a javascript library is so they can build in things like tabbed boxes, accordions and date pickers and little bits like that without going through all the work it takes to write something like that from scratch.

Themeroller is part of the jQuery UI site where you can design and build your own custom theme for your own suite of widgets. Simply adjust the colors, fonts, and textures to your liking and it will customize a download for you with all those widgets in your custom style ready to rock. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

Api Changes

The new version comes with major changes in the API that allows you to create code more easy. Amongst the changes are the removal of 95% of the exposed methods to keep only one single overloaded method per plugin.

For example:

$(”div”).draggable() creates a draggable
$(”div”).draggable(”destroy”) destroys it
$(”div”).draggable(”method”) calls another method on the plugin.

Stability, Debugging, Testing and jquery.simulate

jQuery UI v1.5 is more stable then ever. The team took several steps to greatly improve their debugging and testing including the setup of a dedicated bugtracker, new unit tests and jquery.simulate.js, a plugin specifically designed to fire true browser events. This means, you can actually tell the plugin to pick up your draggable, move it to a certain position and release it again, just if you’d be talking to a real testing person.

Effects with Enchant

Use one of the many effects for you to use in your projects, not only those provided by script.aculo.us (blind,bounce,drop,fold,slide …), but also fresh, new effects (transfer, explode. clip, scale) that make jQuery UI a great library enhancing your applications!

Plugin Stabilization and Enhancements

The biggest improvements and changes were done on individual plugin code. Almost every plugin has been completely rewritten from scratch to optimize stability and performance and every plugin now comes with a bug changelog. We also focused heavily on enhancing options and increasing flexibility (e.g. connecting sortables to draggables) to allow our plugins to be used in almost every environment.

The best way to get a full feel for every enhancement to jQuery UI’s components is to review the changelog.

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