Chapter 7. Using Plugins

Throughout the first six chapters of this book, we have examined jQuery's core components. Doing this has illustrated many of the ways in which the jQuery library can be used to accomplish a wide variety of tasks. Yet as powerful as the library is at its core, its elegant plugin architecture has allowed developers to extend jQuery, making it even more feature-rich.

The growing jQuery community has created hundreds of plugins—from small selector helpers to full-scale user-interface widgets. We will now learn how to tap into this vast resource.

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Downloading and setting up plugins

• Calling jQuery methods provided by plugins

• Finding elements using custom selectors defined by jQuery plugins

• Adding sophisticated user interface behaviors using jQuery UI

• Implementing mobile-friendly features using jQuery Mobile