JQuery
JQuery is a JavaScript library intended to make it easier to add and use JavaScript on your website. It is tailor made for selecting HTML elements and performing some action on the element(s) It is the shorter, faster, lighter and, hopefully, simpler way to add functionality with JavaScript.
Plugins
In order to keep jQuery itself lightweight, the library has adopted a plugin architecture. A plug-in is basically a bit of code that extends JQuery in some specific and usable way e.g. a slideshow plugin. Plug-ins rely on JQuery library for core functions while providing new capabilities.
Plugin Registry and jQuery itself has its own "expansion" packs e.g. jquery UI.
Bear in mind:
- Some plugins will have scripts in the head, some will have them just before the close of the body.
- Some plugins will require you adopt their folder structure.
- Some plugins will have additional CSS you'll need to include (and possibly contend with: be supermindful of the cascade especially as it pertains to the order in which you reference your styles).
- If you can, shop around for the look and feel but don't trade on simplicity and ease of installation of the plugin. The best plugins for beginners are the well-documented ones.
- Things can get weird very quickly when mixing and matching multiple plugins. Always try to streamline as much as possible. Weird is when plugins don't work because they each try to use the same item in the jQuery name space or they don't work because they rely on separate versions of jQuery and an upgrade breaks one of the plugins.
The process
- Download the plugin
- Get the demo working with the demo code on your local machine (once that's up and running, move to the next step).
- Adapt the demo code to your site / pages by adding the necessary references to the .js, .css and other supporting materials to your pages. References must be to folder locations the plugin expects.
- Test and customize!
Demos