What is jQuery?
jQuery is a lightweight, "WRITE LESS, DO MORE",
JavaScript library.
The purpose of
jQuery is to make it much easier to use
JavaScript on your
website.
jQuery takes a lot of common tasks that requires many lines of
JavaScript code to accomplish, and
wraps it
into methods that you can call with a single line of
code.
To use
jQuery, you need to include it on the pages where you wish to take advantage of it. You can do this
by downloading
jQuery from their website at
www.jquery.com. There is usually a choice between a
"
Production" version and a "
Development" version. The first is for your live
website, because it has been
minified and compressed to take up the least amount of space, which is important for your visitors, whose
browser will have to download the
jQuery file along with the rest of your website. For testing and
development, the "
Development" version is best. It hasn't been minified or compressed, so when you run
into an error, you can actually see where in
jQuery it happens.
jQuery also simplifies a lot of the complicated things from
JavaScript, like
AJAX calls and
DOM
manipulation.
The
jQuery library contains the following features:
- HTML/DOM manipulation
- CSS manipulation
- HTML event methods
- Effects and animations
- AJAX
- Utilities
