jQuery is something that I write about a lot on this blog. Sometimes people confuse jQuery with JavaScript, mostly newcomers to the field of Web Development and in this article today, I’ll help you understand what jQuery is exactly and in what way can jQuery assist you. Let’s get the basics clear first in the first section and then move on to how to use it in your Website Development process to be able to take full advantage of what jQuery has to offer.
If you’re a website developer, you might be interested in reading the following articles that make use of JavaScript or jQuery to help you solve common web developer problems.
- Learn How To Read URL Parameters Using jQuery
- How to Create a Sticky Menu Bar using jQuery
- jQuery Full Page Loading Animation
What is jQuery Exactly?
Some people confuse jQuery to be a completely new programming language that can do wonders for them. If you are one of those people, let me burst the bubble for you! jQuery is nothing but a JavaScript library that helps you work with your web page in an efficient and easy to code way. Quoting from the jQuery’s official website, here’s how they describe it. “jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It makes things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers. With a combination of versatility and extensibility, jQuery has changed the way that millions of people write JavaScript”.
What are jQuery Plugins?
Plugins are something that everyone loves. They enhance the functionality of any given platform or language or a software for that matter. But now you may say that jQuery is itself a plugin for JavaScript, and you may not be exactly wrong there. It can be called a plugin, but it does too much and hence it is called a library. Now jQuery plugins are some lines of code that help you execute certain functions without writing a single line of code. I have already covered a few tutorials that make use of some jQuery plugins. Here are a few of those tutorials.
- Add a jQuery Lightbox to your Website or Blog
- How to Create a Countdown Timer using jQuery
- Creating a stylish jQuery Tooltip using a Plugin
How to Use jQuery to Easily Work with HTML Elements
One of the good things about JavaScript is that it allows you to work with the HTML elements on your web page and using them, you can manipulate them or set up listeners on them. But if you’ve worked with JavaScript, you’ll know that selecting and finding such elements requires you to write the following line of code and only then you have access to it.
But with jQuery, this task can become really easy by replacing the above code with just the following code to allow us to control our elements with ease. It is not much of a difference, but it means writing lesser code, which is always good!
That’s all for this article. In this article, I’ve shared with you the basics of jQuery and what it exactly is. I felt the need to share this because a lot of upcoming web developers had this question in their mind and I’ve been asked this question a lot of times to finally write an answer for it. If you already knew most of the content from the article, you can definitely subscribe to Slash Coding today and come back later when we write a post that interests you. Also, follow Slash Coding on social media to know more when we update the blog with new content.
jquery for a layman like me means a positive thing. Jquery based wordpress plugin simply means a code that functions in an efficient way is it not?