What you need for this book

You'll need a text editor to create HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. Some great free options available are TextWrangler for Mac or Notepad++ for Windows. There are many other options available, and you are free to use your favorite text editor for any of the examples in this book. My personal favorite is Sublime Text, which is easy to work with and has a very nice feature set. If you haven't tried it before, I encourage you to download an evaluation copy for free to give it a try.

You'll also need a browser. My personal favorite is Google Chrome, which includes some really helpful built-in debugging tools for both CSS and JavaScript. Again, you are free to use your favorite browser for the examples in the book.

If you want to create images for your own designs, then Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator will be helpful, though they are not strictly necessary. All images needed to set up the examples used in this book are included in the sample code.

jQuery and jQuery plugins are being updated all the time. As new browsers are released with new support and capabilities, and as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS are further developed, new versions of jQuery and plugins are released to keep pace with the change. On one hand, this is a great news—jQuery and accompanying plugins get faster and more powerful all the time. On the other hand, it can be tough to keep up with all the changes. All versions of the plugins referenced were current at the time of writing the book, but you might find some differences when you work through the exercises. Plugin developers are usually very good at documenting the changes and updates, so don't be afraid to read through the documentation so you can understand what's changed and what adjustments you might need to make.