Introduction to Uses of JQuery
JQuery is a fast, small JavaScript library included in a single .js file. It provides many built-in functions using which you can accomplish various tasks easily and quickly. JQuery is a framework built using JavaScript capabilities. Hence, you can use all the functions and other capabilities available in JavaScript.
You can use any JavaScript editor to write jQuery such as
- Notepad
- Visual Studio
- Eclipse
- Ultra edit
Both compressed and uncompressed versions of jQuery can be downloaded free from the internet. A compressed version should be used in the production environment whereas the uncompressed version is to be used in a development environment. Compressed version minimizes the library by eliminating extra white space, line feed and shortening the variable and function names. So the compressed version is not readable. An uncompressed library is readable, hence useful in debugging. Once the appropriate version is downloaded, it can be referenced in a file using a <script> tag.
jQuery can be used in two ways
- Local installation: download the jQuery library on your local machine and include it on your HTML code.
- CDN Based Version: you can include the jQuery library into your HTML code directly from a content delivery network. Google and Microsoft provide content delivery for the latest version.
When can be jQuery used?
- JQuery can be used to develop Ajax based applications.
- It can be used to make code simple, concise and reusable.
- It simplifies the process of traversal of HTML DOM tree.
- It can also handle events, perform animation and add ajax support in web applications.
When you open your page in a browser and load jQuery library successfully, it adds a global function named jQuery(). The global scope means the scope of the window, so the global jQuery function can be called like window.jQuery() or jQuery () anywhere in your web page. $ is an alias of jQuery function, so you can also use $() as a short form of jQuery().
10 Important Uses of JQuery
JQuery’s API is well designed. Its functionality is so complete that the last few major releases of the library have hardly added any new methods at all. JQuery plays extremely well with other code. It doesn’t extend any built-in JavaScript objects and only adds one symbol to the global namespace. Some of the main uses of jQuery explained in detail are as below:
1. Plugins
A plug-in is a piece of code written in a standard JavaScript file. These files provide useful jQuery methods which can be used along with jQuery library methods. There is an abundance of plugins on the web that make creating special effects simple and fast for web developers.
2. DOM Manipulation
The jQuery made it easy to select DOM elements, negotiate them and modify them using a cross-browser open source selector engine called Sizzle.
3. Animations and AJAX support
The jQuery comes with plenty of built-in animation effects. It also helps you a lot in developing a responsive and feature rich site using AJAX technology. Hence, uses of jQuery is preferred by most web developers to make web pages more exciting, interactive, cleaner and more user-friendly.
4. Cross-browser support
Currently, uses of jQuery are the most popular JavaScript library that works on all the browsers. It also supports CSS3 selectors and basic X Path syntax.
5. Write Less, Do More
JQuery takes a lot of common tasks that require a lot of JavaScript code to accomplish and wraps them into methods that you can call with a single line of code. This makes five lines of jQuery equivalent to 25 lines of conventional JavaScript code. This means smaller files and faster loading web pages.
6. Ease of learning
JQuery doesn’t require any particular prerequisites to learn and is very simple as it is built on a shorter code than JavaScript. The simple coding standards and coding syntax, the time required to develop and deploy a website can be reduced considerably. Also, the developers don’t need any design talent or learn web designing as uses of jQuery provides an abundant set of built-in plugins.
7. Search engine optimized
Some jQuery effects are almost identical to Flash, but all the content in jQuery is set up as text. This makes jQuery smaller than a Flash and content is readable by all search engine bots.
8. Easy integration with Visual Studio IDE
The Visual Studio provides with extensions which help in integration of jQuery libraries into.Net framework projects. This integration of JQuery libraries into.Net framework is supported by the Visual Studio 2010 version. The NuGet package extension of visual studio helps in this integration. With help of this integration visual studio’s IntelliSense feature is switched on. This feature all the jQuery methods are auto-populated and errors are displayed where the syntax is wrong.
9. Even when JavaScript is disabled, a jQuery element has still displayed
Some browsers had a prerequisite to installing abode flash, so as to render all the content properly. This is not the case with jQuery. Manipulating HTML DOM has become usual practice for developing and modifying web pages now a day. So even if JavaScript is disabled in the browser content will be rendered.
10. jQuery makes flash like animated applications
It takes time to learn Flash and years of experience to make animations in Flash, hence hiring Flash developers is not a cheap task. With uses of jQuery, you only need knowledge of JavaScript and HTML to make animations. Also, there are tons of plugins which make this task even simpler.
Conclusion
jQuery is the most outstanding cross-browser JavaScript library compiled for ease of client-side scripting of HTML. As jQuery is built on top of JavaScript, it provides all the functionalities of JavaScript. We can say from above points jQuery is enhanced version of JavaScript. JQuery has tons of impressive effects, it is often used by web designers to make their designs much lovable and elegant. It minimizes tasks of web developers to great extent, by providing instant plugins.
One of the biggest strength of jQuery is the size of its community. It is easier to find support, easier to find developers and more likely it will continue to be improved going forward.
Recommended Articles
This has been a guide to Uses of jQuery in the real world. Here we have discussed the Different Uses of jQuery like Animations and AJAX support, DOM Manipulation, etc. You may also look at the following article to learn more
