JQuery HowTo

20/01/2011 JQuery HowTo
JQUERY HOWTO
B L O G I S A B O UT J Q UER Y J A V A S C R I P T L I B R A R Y. I C O L L EC T J A V A S C R I P T C O D E S N I P P ET S , H O W T O ' S , T I P S A ND
P ER FO R M A NCE O B S ER V A T I O NS .
FRI DAY, OC TO B ER 15, 2010
Check if a language file is loaded for jQuery

Globalization plugin
Recently, I wrote my first jQuery Globalization plugin introductory post. I
mentioned that I will write a tutorial for Globalization plugin and I am. While
writing the tutorial I thought I’ll write one of my short Friday jQuery tips.
In this post you will learn how to check if a specific jQuery Globalization plugin
language file is loaded or not. Globalization plugin saves localization data and all
information in jQuery.cultures object. By default English language is added.
So if you add "Inuktitut" language (code iu) the jQuery.cultures object will be
extended and will have jQuery.cultures.iu object in it.
So to check if particular language file is loaded all we need to do is to check if

jQuery.cultures.langCode is defined. Here is an example:
if($.cultures.iu){
// Inuktitut jquery.glob.iu.js lang file is loaded
}else {
// Inuktitut language is not loaded, load it here
}
Some cultures have different alphabet, so they will have that appended in their
language and culture names. For example Inuktitut has Syllabics (iu-Cans ) and
Latin alphabets (iu-Latn ), So you will not be able to check the file existence
with the code above. Here is a syntax to do it:
if($.cultures.iu-Latin){
// Will not work
}
// Better way to check if the lang file is loaded

if($.cultures["iu-Latn"]){
// Inuktitut jquery.glob.iu-Latn.js lang file is loaded
}else {
// Inuktitut language is not loaded, load it here
}
P O S T ED B Y UZ B EK J O N A T 1: 23 P M 0 C O M M ENT S
L A B ELS : B EG I NNER , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E, T I P , T UT O R I A L
W ED NES D A Y, O C T O B ER 6 , 2 0 1 0
JavaScript to detect iPad visitors

This post gives you a short JavaScript function to detect your iPad users.
Without any further ado, a javascript code to detect iPad users:
function isiPad(){
return (navigator.platform.indexOf("iPad") != -1);
}
You can also detect browser version and some other stuff by parsing user agent
string. Here is an iPad Safari’s user agent string for your reference:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKi

t/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safar
i/531.21.10
Recently a friend of mine got himself an iPad and I couldn’t not notice how his
internet browsing device preferences are changing (PC & iPad). More and more
people are using hand held devices namely iPad to browse the internet. So it’s
about time to show your iPad visitors some love and display your website
designed specifically for iPad.
http://jquery-howto.blogspot.com/ 1/73
Let’s see how to do this. There are two way:
1. Redirect iPad visitors

2. Apply different CSS file for iPad users
Most of the posts on the internet related to iPad user detection are suggesting
and showing you how to redirect (including myself in my previous iPhone & iPod
detection post). However, I would recommend the second option, applying
different CSS file.
You can apply the same technique described in applying different styling for
javascript enabled browser with CSS post and apply different CSS rules for iPad
visitors.
Sidenote: If you decide to redirect iPad users rather than apply different CSS
style rules, than I would recommend using server side detection and redirection.
You can see an example PHP code by David Walsh.
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T U ES D A Y, O C T O B ER 5 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery Globalization plugin — jquery.glob.js

This is the first post of a series that are dedicated to jQuery’s new Microsoft
contributed Globalization plugin or shortly jquery.glob.js . In this first post I will
try to cover the very basics like library licensing, “the good & the bad” and some
thoughts on how it could be improved (IMO).
I will be post some jQuery globalization plugin tutorials in coming days, so bare
with me.
Before we jump into licensing and support issues, first things are first. What’s
up with the name? It’s confusing! When did we start calling localization (l10n) a
globalization?! I haven’t seen any g12n abbreviations lately, have you? When I
first came across it, I thought it was some wicked jQuery solution to "global
variables are evil" idea or solution to some other problem that I am not even
familiar with :) Don’t you agree, it’s confusing a bit.
So, there you go. One little improvement: "Don’t confuse, rename it!"
Before we talk about the jQuery globalization plugin license, let me mention that
this plugin is now officially supported by jQuery Project. Which means that it
will be under continues improvement by jQuery core team and will be compatible
with the future jQuery and jQuery UI releases. Also globalization plugin will
become a part of the jQuery UI project.
jQuery Project officially supports jQuery Globalization plugin.
Now, the legal stuff – the license. Because jQuery project accepted the
globalization plugin as officially supported (and of course because Microsoft
agreed to its terms) jQuery Globalization plugin is distributed under the same
license as core jQuery.js. So you are safe to do pretty much anything.
jQuery Globalization plugin is licensed under the same non-restrictive terms as

the core jQuery.js
After playing with the plugin for a while I realized that it does not do any DOM
manipulations and you certainly don’t expect any animations. So what’s the
point of having it as jQuery plugin and not a general JavaScript
globalization/localization library? This way a larger community could benefit from
it. I guess it was more of marketing decision rather than technical.
JavaScript library alternative to globalization plugin would be nice.
To be honest, JavaScript and jQuery community had a lack of localization

libraries and jQuery Globalization plugin with over 350 localizations is a great
solution. Surely, plugin’s exposed function names and namespacing could be
improved, and most probably will be, but we’ll talk about it in our next “jQuery
Globalization plugin tutorial” post. Stay tuned…
L A B ELS : I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, J Q UER Y UI , NEW S , P LUG I N
S A T UR D A Y, S EP T EM B ER 2 5 , 2 0 1 0
Russian CDN for jQuery
I recently discovered that the biggest Russian search engine Yandex (yeah, it’s
bigger than Google in Russia) is using jQuery on its home page. It also hosts all
previous jQuery versions on it’s fast gzip enabled servers just like Google and
MIcrosoft do.
Because most of the Russian internet users have visited Yandex already, they
already have it in their browser cache. I also did route tracing from Russian server
to Google CDN servers and I was directed to the server in California, USA and
pining the local Russian CDN server was at least 3 times faster.
Anyway, if you decide to use Russian CDN to host your jQuery files here are the
links:
Minified versions
http://yandex.st/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js
Non minified versions

http://yandex.st/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.js
jQuery UI links
http://yandex.st/jquery-ui/1.8.2/jquery-ui.min.js
Hosted versions
1.8.2, 1.8.1, 1.8.0, 1.7.3, 1.7.2, 1.7.1, 1.7.0, 1.6.0
jQuery UI modules can be downloaded seperately

http://yandex.st/jquery-ui/1.7.2/effects.blind.js
http://yandex.st/jquery-ui/1.8.0/jquery.effects.blind.min.js
Language files
http://yandex.st/jquery-ui/1.7.2/i18n/ui.datepicker-ru.js
http://yandex.st/jquery-ui/1.8.0/i18n/jquery.ui.datepicker-ru.min
.js
jQuery UI CSS files (matches original directory names)

http://yandex.st/jquery-ui/1.8.0/themes/humanity/jquery.ui.all.mi
n.css
P O S T ED B Y UZ B EK J O N A T 10: 19 A M 2 C O M M ENT S
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, L I NK , P ER FO R M A NC E, R ES O UR C E
FRI DAY, S EP TEM B ER 24, 2010
iPhone / iPod detection using jQuery &

JavaScript
In this post you will learn how to detect iPhone/iPod using javascript/jQuery,
redirect your iPhone users to mobile version of your site using javascript and
alternative and better way to redirect your visitors using server-side PHP code
snippet.
The latest buzz around jQuery is upcoming jQuery mobile – support for mobile
devices. Current jQuery core work fine on iPhone and iPod touch browsers and
most of us have created a mobile version of our websites, developed or converted
websites for others. Basically, jQuery is already being used on iPhone and iPod
touch devices. Without any further ado…
Javascript code to detect iPhone and iPod browsers

// Return boolean TRUE/FALSE
function isiPhone(){
return (
(navigator.platform.indexOf("iPhone") != -1) ||
(navigator.platform.indexOf("iPod") != -1)
);
}
You might wonder why do we even need to detect if our website is ran on iPhone
Safari or normal desktop Safar if jQuery works fine on both. Well, there are Safari
specific CSS features that you might want to utilize and you need to know if the
current browser is Safari, then you may also want to consider reducing resource
consuming features like animations for iPhone version of your site.
Redirecting iPhone & iPod users

You may also use this script to redirect iPhone and iPod users to your website’s
mobile version:
// Redirect iPhone/iPod visitors

function isiPhone(){
return (
(navigator.platform.indexOf("iPhone") != -1) ||
(navigator.platform.indexOf("iPod") != -1)
);
}
if(isiPhone()){
window.location = "mob.example.com";
}
For example: if your website is www.example.com and you have a mobile version
at mob.example.com, then put the following script to your www.example.com.
Redirect iPhone users using PHP

It is better to detect and redirect your iPhone users on the server-side. Here is a
PHP code to redirect iPhone users:
// Redirect iPhone/iPod visitors

if(strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'iPhone') ||
strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'iPod')){
header("Location: http://mob.example.com");
}
User agent strings for your reference:
/*
User Agent String for iPhone
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/42
0+ (KHTML, like Gecko)
Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3
User Agent String for iPod Touch

Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.
1 (KHTML, like Gecko)
Version/3.0 Mobile/3A101a Safari/419.3
*/
As final words, I would like to remind you that sometimes your visitors would not
like to be redirected to mobile versions of your websites. That’s why your mobile
version should always include a link to your non-mobile website. The above
scripts can be rewrote to check if user has chosen not to be redirected. Either
set cookie or a URL parameter.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, J Q UER Y M O B I L E, R EFER ENC E, T I P
Coupure de page insérée par AutoPager. Page ( 2 ).
W ED NES D A Y, S EP T EM B ER 2 2 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery mobile source code

If you want to download jQuery Mobile source code and look into it just like
everybody else, we are all out of luck :( As I mentioned in my previous post
jQuery mobile facts, the source code will be available in October this year.
The jQuery Mobile source will not be in a separate jquery.mobile.js file. It will
be right in the jQuery core. This means that jQuery team is fixing and improving
jQuery core so that it works nicely in all major mobile phones and devices.
By the way, if you want to keep track of the jQuery mobile source code and be
the first one to download it, when it is available, you should watch jQuery on
GitHub.
The big part of the upcoming jQuery mobile is new UI components that work and
render nicely in all mobile devices and degrade gracefully. So, keep an eye on
jQuery UI as well. Here is the jQuery UI GitHub page.
Meanwhile you can read all jQuery mobile facts here.
L A B ELS : I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, J Q UER Y M O B I L E, J Q UER Y UI , NEW S
T U ES D A Y, S EP T EM B ER 2 1 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery & Cookies (get/set/delete & a plugin)

In this post I would like to share javascript functions that will help you easily get,
set, delete and basically manage your cookies. Also, link to jQuery Cookie
plugin, it’s improved version with more functions and of course easy to read and
short examples on how to use these functions.
I will try to keep this post short and will not explain what cookies are and how to
eat them. There are plenty of articles covering it already.
Here are javascript functions by Peter-Paul Koch to getCookie() , setCookie()

and deleteCookie() :
function setCookie(name,value,days) {
if (days) {
var date = new Date();
date.setTime(date.getTime()+(days*24*60*60*1000));
var expires = "; expires="+date.toGMTString();
}
else var expires = "";
document.cookie = name+"="+value+expires+"; path=/";
}
function getCookie(name) {
var nameEQ = name + "=";
var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) {
var c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0)==' ') c = c.substring(1,c.length);
if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.len
gth,c.length);
}
return null;
}
function deleteCookie(name) {
setCookie(name,"",-1);
}
/*
Changed function names from readCookie(), createCookie()
and eraseCookie() to getCookie(), setCookie() and
deleteCookie().
*/
Here is an example that shows you how to use those functions in your javascript
to create, edit and delete your cookies:
// Create/write a cookie and store it for 1 day
setCookie('myCookie', 'myValue', 1);
// Get my cookie
getCookie('myCookie');
// Delete/erase my cookie
deleteCookie('myCookie');
These 3 javascript functions are all you need to manage your cookies, but if you
want to do it in “jQuery style” than you can use jQuery Cookie plugin or it’s
improved version.
Here is how to use jQuery Cookie plugin in your code:
// Setting a cookie
$.cookie('myCookie':'myValue');
// Creating cookie with all availabl options

$.cookie('myCookie2', 'myValue2', { expires: 7, path: '/', domain
: 'example.com', secure: true });
// Get a cookie
$.cookie('myCookie');
// Delete a cookie
$.cookie('myCookie', null);
With an improved version of the plugin you can set and get multiple cookies in
one call. The improved version of the jQuery Cookie pluin only adds few additional
bytes. So it really worth it.
// Set multiple cookies

$.cookie({ 'cookie1':'value1', 'cookie2':'value2' });
L A B ELS : B EG I NNER , J A V A SCR I P T , J Q UER Y, P LUG I N
S UN D A Y, A UG US T 2 9 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery Mobile
jQuery Mobile is an attempt to create a javascript framework that would work on
all major mobile browsers. In this post I will try to lay down all the facts that I
could find about jQuery Mobile, so that you are up to date.
jQuery team has mentioned that they were planning and started to work on
jQuery for Mobile devices when they announced jQuery 1.4. John Resig said that
they already had different mobile devices from sponsor for testing purposes.
Anyway, jQuery Mobile is officially announced now, but there is a very little
information about it.
Here are some facts that I found:
1. jQuery Mobile will be in core, NOT as a separate distribution like

jquery.mobile.js
2. jQuery UI team will improve current jQuery UI and develop new mobile
components (initial designs).
3. Release of the jQuery Mobile and new jQuery UI components is planned
for October 2010.
4. As of writing of this post, jQuery Mobile source code is not available.
The code will be pushed to the jQuery core’s GitHub repository and
announced on the official jQuery mobile page.
5. You can help jQuery Mobile project by testing jQuery core on your mobile
devices at TestSwarm.
That’s all I could find on jQuery Mobile for now. Subscribe to my RSS or follow
me on Twitter to stay updated about news related to jQuery Mobile.
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y M O B I LE, L I NK , NEW S
W ED NES D A Y, A U G U S T 1 1 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery.live() – event binding to AJAX loaded
elements
jQuery.live() function was introduced in jQuery version 1.3. It makes it easy
to dynamically bind events to DOM elements that have not yet been created. In
other words, it helps you to easily attach events to AJAX loaded elements that
match your criteria.
NOTE:
If for some reason you are using old versions of jQuery, prior to 1.3, you will need
to use event delegation or another method as they are described in my previous
post named “How to bind events to AJAX loaded elements in jQuery 1.2.x”.
So, how does .live() function works?

It uses event delegation technique to bind to the events that fire on your page. In
other words, it binds an event to the DOM tree’s root and listens to all events.
When an event is fired it checks it’s originator and checks if we have bound any
events to that particular DOM element.
// Example usage of jQuery().live() function

$('.mySelector').live('click', function(event){
// my click event handler
});
// As of jQuery 1.4.1 .live() can accept

// multiple events, just like .bind() does
$('input').live('focus blur', function(event){
// fires on focus and blur
});
You can also pass in additional data to your events to overcome some issues
caused by closure. This was introduced in jQuery 1.4. Also, it worth mentioning
that data is passed when the binding is made. Keep this in mind when you pass
in dynamic data.
$('.mySelector').live('click', {myVar: 'myVal'}, function(event){

// my click event handler
});
NOTE:
Some events were not supported cross browser in jQuery 1.3. Events like
submit were supported in Firefox only. This is resolved in jQuery 1.4. Other
methods that were not supported cross browser in jQuery 1.3 include: focusin ,
focusout , mouseenter , mouseleave , etc.
NOTE:
.live() function also works with custom events.
jQuery.live() function performance

Because .live() uses event delegation and performs additional checks, it will
always be slower then events attached to the DOM elements using .bind()
function (this includes shorthands like: .click() , .submit() , etc.). However,
you can improve your .live() function performance providing context (as of ver.
1.4).
// Using context for better performance

// Note that context is a DOM element, not jQuery
$('.mySelector', $('.myParent')[0]).live('click', function(event)
{
// my faster click event
});
Unbinding events attached using .live() function

.unbind() function equivalent of .live() function is .die() . You can unbind
ALL events attached using .live() function from an element by simply calling
.die() . If you want to remove a specific event or a specific handler function of a
specific event type, you can call .die('event', functionHandler) .
// Remove ALL events attached using .live()
$('.mySelector').die();
// Remove myFunk() from click event

$('.mySelector').die('click', myFunk);
function myFunk(){
alert("Clicked!");
}
If you have any questions or need any help, you can ask me on Facebook.
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M O ND A Y, J UL Y 1 2 , 2 0 1 0
How to check loaded jQuery UI version?

In this post I will show how to check currently loaded jQuery UI version on the
page. Unlike checking loaded jQuery version ( $().jquery ), checking jQuery UI
version is a bit different.
Checking currently loaded jQuery UI version on the page:
// Returns jQuery UI version (ex: 1.8.2 ) or undefined

$.ui.version
// Alternatively
jQuery.ui.version
You would most probably use it in the if statement:
if($.ui.version){
// jQuery UI is loaded
}
You can also check if jQuery UI is loaded or not:
// Checking if jQuery UI is loaded or not

if($.ui){
// jQuery UI is loaded
}else {
// jQuery UI is not loaded
}
L A B ELS : B EG I NNER , HO W T O , JQ UER Y UI , T I P
M O ND A Y, A P R I L 1 9 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery YouTube plugin demo

Long overdue demo for my jQuery YouTube plugin – jYouTube is now available
here. The plugin can fetch and get you any YouTube video’s screenshot or
thumbnail by its URL or video id.
Here is an example:
// Getting video screenshot by YouTube video ID

$.jYoutube('rSUfWXcNAOw');
// Returns video thumbnail by YouTube video URL

$.jYoutube('http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSUfWXcNAOw', 'small')
;
By default the plugin will return URL of the video screenshot (480×360). If you
just need a video thumbnail (120×90) pass an optional second parameter
"small ".
See the plugin in actio n on jQuery Y ouTube demo page.
I hope you will find the plugin useful.
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, P L UG I N
S UN D A Y, F EB R U A R Y 2 8 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery Twitter plugin update

A lot of users requested a demo for my jQuery Twitter plugin. It has been a while
since I updated the plugin, so I downloaded the latest version and while looking
thought the code found couple of bugs. So, here comes updated and fixed jQuery
Tweeter plugin - jTwitter 1.1.1.
In this release, I fixed a little bug that would not allow you request Tweets without
number of posts like this:
// Defaults to 5 latest posts

$.jTwitter('jQueryHowto', function(posts){
//Callback function with the user data
});
You can specify the number of posts you want to be fetched like so:
// Get latest 13 posts

$.jTwitter('jQueryHowto', 13, function(posts){
//Callback function with the user data
});
Also, I created a simple demo page for the plugin here. Please visit and see the
code and also note that with this plugin you can create a custom Twitter badge
with no design limitations!
Update: Pushed the project to GitHub.
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, L I NK , NEW S , P LUG I N
T H UR S D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 1 8 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery code / syntax guidelines

We all write our own jQuery code and since creating custom jQuery plugins is so
easy, we all create our own jQuery plugins. And all of us have our own code
syntax preferences. For example:
function myFunction() {
...
}
// some prefere it like this

function myFunction()
{
...
}
If you want to publish your jQuery plugins following jQuery core code writing
guidelines is a good idea. This would make your code more easier to read to
other jQuery developers. Follow the link above and go through the guidelines (it
will only take a few minutes). The guidelines page shows gives you general
guidelines, but I went through the jQuery core code and found several
additional ones. I lay they out at the end of this post.
In short, the official guidelines are as follows: (Taken from official docs)
1. Use tabs to indent your code

2. Use liberal spacing":
function myFunction ( myVar, myVar2 ) {

// Pay attention to spaces around
// the brackets and curly brackets
}
3. Use strict equality checks whenever possible (===)
4. Braces should always be used on blocks and statements should not be
on the same line as a conditionals:
// NO:
if ( true ) blah();
// YES:
if ( true ) {
blah();
}
5. When checking an object type:
String: typeof object === "string"

Number: typeof object === "number"
Function: jQuery.isFunction(object)
Array: jQuery.isArray(object)
Element: object.nodeType
See full list on official docs page (link above)
6. Don't use "string".match() for RegExp, instead use .test() or

.exec()
7. Node related rules:
.nodeName should always be used in favor of .tagName .
.nodeType should be used to determine the classification of a
node (not .nodeName ).
Only attach data using .data().
Now let’s see other additional rules that I could spot reading the jQuery core
code.
Additional jQuery code / syntax guidelines:
1. The first thing that I noticed was multiline comments did not use common
/* comment */ syntax. In jQuery core all multiline comments use line
comment syntax // comment .
// This is an example of multiline

// comment syntax used in jQuery core.
2. Local variables are declared and initialized on one line just below the
function declaration with no extra line:
function someFunction () {
var target = arguments[0] || {}, i = 1, name;
// Empty line and then the rest of the code

}
3. When declaring objects, there is no space between property name and

colon:
{
myName: "",
myFunc: function( ) {}
}
4. All strings are in double quotes " " , not single quotes ' ' :
var myMarkup = "<a href='/a'>a</a>";
5. The last but not least, variable naming uses camelCase.
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S A T UR D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 0
Dynamically create iframe with jQuery

This article explains and shows how to dynamically create an iframe in your
HTML document’s DOM using jQuery and/or JavaScript. It also gives you an
example code. This post is not extensive explanation of how to manage and work
with iframes using jQuery. This post simply shows you how to dynamically
create iframes using jQuery and JavaScript and serves as a note.
Creating iframe is similar to creating any DOM element. All you need to do is to
use jQuery factory like this:
// Create an iframe element

$(‘<iframe />’);
// You can also create it with attributes set

$('<iframe id="myFrame" name="myFrame">');
// Finnaly attach it into the DOM

$('<iframe id="myFrame" name="myFrame">').appendTo('body');
Don’t forget that the iframe source is just an iframe’s attribute. So you can set
that just like any other attribute.
// Setting iframe's source

$('<iframe />').attr('src', 'http://www.google.com');
UPDATE:
As BinaryKitten point’s out below, with jQuery 1.4 you can do it using the
following syntax:
// Set attributes as a second parameter

$('<iframe />', {
name: 'myFrame',
id: 'myFrame',
...
}).appendTo('body');
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T H UR S D A Y, J A NUA R Y 1 4 , 2 0 1 0
jQuery 1.4 Released

After a long break on the blog, I am back on the release date of jQuery version
1.4! Today is jQuery’s birthday and what can be a better present than a new
version release? As I tweeted previously jQuery 1.4 has a lot to offer: better
iframe support, flexible events (this in particular), etc. If you have not been
keeping up to date with jQuery 1.4 features John Resig will announce 1.4 release
details tomorrow.
Meanwhile, you can download it and see for yourself.
Download jQuery 1.4 1.4.2 from Google CDN (minified)

Download jQuery 1.4 1.4.2 from Official jQuery website (minified)
Also, if you want to learn more about what is new in jQuery 1.4 then you might
find the following resources useful:
1. 14 Days of jQuery
2. Official jQuery Blog
3. jQuery 1.4 Cheatsheet
4. jQuery on Tweeter
If you have any more resources related to jQuery 1.4 please share in comments.
Happy Birthday jQuery and jQueriers :)
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, L I NK , NEW S , R ES O UR C E
FR I DA Y, NO V EM B ER 6, 2009
Cross-domain RSS to JSON converter [jQuery

plugin]
No doubt that Web2.0 is one of the best things that happened in our lifetime
(besides the internet itself). When we mention Web2.0 first things that come into
our minds are AJAX, rounded corners, clean and light layouts and of course RSS
feeds. Nowadays, you either provide an RSS feed or consume it in your web app
using AJAX/JavaScript.
The only bad thing is that you can not request cross-site content with AJAX
requests. Requesting someone else’s RSS in your JavaScript falls into this
limitations. One way to overcome this problem is to apply a server-side proxy
workaround. However, there is even better solution and workaround – RSS to
JSON conversion.
Basically, using Google Feeds API service and jQuery plugin you can request
and get any RSS from different domain converted into the JSON object in your
javascript.
Let’s see an example of RSS2JSON converter:
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.jgfeed.js"></script>
<script>
$.jGFeed('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/26767000.rss'
,
function(feeds){
// Check for errors
if(!feeds){
// there was an error
return false;
}
// do whatever you want with feeds here
for(var i=0; i<feeds.entries.length; i++){
var entry = feeds.entries[i];
// Entry title
entry.title;
}
}, 10);
</script>
In order to have universal client-side RSS to JSON converter you first need to
include jquery.js and Google Feeds API plugin jquery.jgfeed.js . Then use
jQuery plugin and Google Feeds API to get reliable and fast RSS to JSON(P)
converter.
The code above gets Twitter RSS feeds in JSON format and does whatever it
wants with it. Great workaround isn’t it :)
To see jGFeed() ’s argument lists and how to use it please read this post.
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T U ES D A Y, NO V EM B ER 3 , 2 0 0 9
Create callback functions for your jQuery plugins

& extensions
Most of the time custom jQuery plugins and extensions that we create do not
use a callback functions. They usually simply work on DOM elements or do
some calculations. But there are cases when we need to define our own
custom callback functions for our plugins. And this is especially true when
our plugins utilize AJAX querying.
Let’s say our custom jQuery extension gets data by making some AJAX request.
$.extend({
myFunc : function(someArg){
var url = "http://site.com?q=" + someArg;
$.getJSON(url, function(data){
// our function definition hardcoded
});
}
});
What is bad in this jQuery code is that the callback function is defined and
hardcoded right in the plugin itself. The plugin is not really flexible and its user
will have to change the plugin code, which is bad!
So the solution is to define your own custom callback function argument. Here is
how it is done:
$.extend({
myFunc : function(someArg, callbackFnk){
var url = "http://site.com?q=" + someArg;
// now we are calling our own callback function

if(typeof callbackFnk == 'function'){
callbackFnk.call(this, data);
}
});
}
});
$.myFunc(args, function(){
// now my function is not hardcoded
// in the plugin itself
});
The above code shows you how to create a callback function for AJAX load, but if
you want to create a simple callback function for your jQuery plugin, for
example the one that executes on your own custom events. To achive this you
can do the following:
$.extend({
myFunc : function(someArg, callbackFnk){
// do something here
var data = 'test';
// now call a callback function

if(typeof callbackFnk == 'function'){
callbackFnk.call(this, data);
}
}
});
$.myFunc(someArg, function(arg){
// now my function is not hardcoded
// in the plugin itself
// and arg = 'test'
});
L A B ELS : A JA X , B EG I NN ER , EV ENT S , HO W T O , I NSI G HT S , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E,
T UT O R I A L, W O R K A R O UND
S UN D A Y, NO V EM B E R 1 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery Twitter plugin update – jTwitter 1.1

Some time ago I created jQuery Twitter plugin – jTwitter. Plugin lets you get data
about any Twitter user, such as user’s bio, profile image, homepage URL,
background image URL, following count, followers count, messages count, etc.
without any Twitter API key. It is very useful to attach additional Twitter data to
your site’s user profiles, etc.
However, it was not very handy for creating your own and custom Twitter Badge.
Well, right until now! I updated jTwitter plugin and now it can get you not only
Twitter user details but also any number of that user’s latest posts. And yes, all
these you can do without any Twitter API keys.
Here is the main function and its argument details:
$.jTwitter(username, numberOfPosts, callbackFunction);
/* username - Twitter username
numberOfPosts - Number of user posts to get
callbackFunction - callback function to call
when data is loaded */
Let’s see a real life example now. In example below, we are fetching latest 3
posts of jQueryHowto Twitter user and appending those post messages to some
DOM element with an id=tweets .
$.jTwitter('jQueryHowto', 3, function(posts){
for(var i=0; i<posts.length; i++){
$('#tweets').append(posts[i].text);
}
});
Y ou can see example usage and demo here.
To get a clear view of what data is returned and available in your callback function
here is an example of returned JSON data object:
/*
Example of returned object
*/
[
{
'in_reply_to_user_id':null,
'in_reply_to_screen_name':null,
'source':'web',
'created_at':'Fri Sep 18 06:11:15 +0000 2009',
'truncated':false,
'user':{
'profile_background_color':'9ae4e8',
'description':'jQuery and JavaScript howtos, tutorials, hac
ks, tips and performanace tests. Ask your jQuery questions here..
.',
'notifications':false,
'time_zone':'Central Time (US & Canada)',
'url':'http://jquery-howto.blogspot.com',
'screen_name':'jQueryHowto',
'following':true,
'profile_sidebar_fill_color':'e0ff92',
'created_at':'Thu Mar 26 14:58:19 +0000 2009',
'profile_sidebar_border_color':'87bc44',
'followers_count':2042,
'statuses_count':505,
'friends_count':1015,
'profile_text_color':'000000',
'protected':false,
'profile_background_image_url':'http://s.twimg.com/a/125320
9888/images/themes/theme1/bg.png',
'location':'',
'name':'jQuery HowTo',
'favourites_count':15,
'profile_link_color':'0000ff',
'id':26767000,
'verified':false,
'profile_background_tile':false,
'utc_offset':-21600,
'profile_image_url':'http://a3.twimg.com/profile_images/110
763033/jquery_normal.gif'
},
'in_reply_to_status_id':null,
'id':4073301536,
'favorited':false,
'text':'Host jQuery on Microsoft CDN servers http://retwt.me/
2N3P'
},
{
'source':'<a href="http://www.hootsuite.com" rel="nofollow">H
ootSuite</a>',
'created_at':'Thu Sep 17 17:20:21 +0000 2009',
'truncated':false,
'user':{
.',
'following':false,
'profile_link_color':'0000ff',
'protected':false,
'verified':false,
'location':'',
'id':26767000,
},
'id':4058535256,
'favorited':false,
'text':'jQuery Tip: Don't forget that you can load jQuery UI
files from Google servers as well http://bit.ly/fJs2r'
},
{
'source':'web',
'created_at':'Thu Sep 17 05:44:30 +0000 2009',
'truncated':false,
'user':{
.',
'following':true,
'profile_link_color':'0000ff','protected':false,
'verified':false,
'location':'',
'id':26767000,
},
'id':4048429737,
'favorited':false,
'text':'Added a demo page for my 'How to bind events to AJAX
loaded elements' blog post as requested by users http://bit.ly/q2
tWe'
}
]
As you can see, you get not only user’s latest posts but also all the information
about posts and user who posted it on Twitter.
Y ou might also be interested in my jQuery Y ouTube Plugin.

It gets any YouTube video’s thumbnail image.
If you are using Twitter don’t forget to follow me.
L A B ELS : A JA X , J Q UER Y, J S O N, NEW S, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E
T U ES D A Y, O C T O B ER 2 0 , 2 0 0 9
JavaScript / jQuery password generator

This month, October, is a National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The aim is
to increase cyber and internet security awareness among surfers. Google and
others are joining the move. So I thought I would write a post regarding internet
security to add my 2 cents. In this post you will find JavaScript function that
generates random passwords of any length as well as jQuery version.
JavaScript Password Generator

function password(length, special) {
var iteration = 0;
var password = "";
var randomNumber;
if(special == undefined){
var special = false;
}
while(iteration < length){
randomNumber = (Math.floor((Math.random() * 100)) % 94) + 33;
if(!special){
if ((randomNumber >=33) && (randomNumber <=47)) { continue;
}
}
}
if ((randomNumber >=123) && (randomNumber <=126)) { continu
e; }
}
iteration++;
password += String.fromCharCode(randomNumber);
}
return password;
}
This function takes two parameters: integer value for password length and
optional boolean value true if you want to include special characters in your
generated passwords.
Examples of generated passwords

password(8);
// Outputs: Yrc7TxX3
password(12, true);
//Outputs: C}4_ege!P&#M
jQuery password generator

$.extend({
password: function (length, special) {
var iteration = 0;
var password = "";
var randomNumber;
if(special == undefined){
var special = false;
}
while(iteration < length){
randomNumber = (Math.floor((Math.random() * 100)) % 94) +
33;
if(!special){
if ((randomNumber >=33) && (randomNumber <=47)) { con
tinue; }
tinue; }
tinue; }
if ((randomNumber >=123) && (randomNumber <=126)) { c
ontinue; }
}
iteration++;
password += String.fromCharCode(randomNumber);
}
return password;
}
});
// How to use
$.password(8);
$.password(12, true);
L A B ELS : JA V A S CR I P T , JQ UER Y, S EC UR I T Y, T O O LS
T H UR S D A Y, S EP T EM B ER 1 7 , 2 0 0 9
Host jQuery on Microsoft CDN servers

After Microsoft decided to ship and use jQuery library for its JavaScript needs in
Visual Studio, hosting jQuery on Microsoft CDN servers is actually a logical and
good decision. Yes, some of us might argue that Google already hosts jQuery,
but Microsoft can not recommend to use its competitor’s services, can it?! :)
Anyway, intention of this post is not to discuss why Microsoft introduced its own
jQuery hosted servers, bu to share links to Microsoft hosted jQuery library. Here
we go:
jQuery 1.4.x
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.2.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.2.min.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.1-vsdoc.js
jQuery 1.3.2
http://ajax.Microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.3.2.js
http://ajax.Microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.3.2.min.js
http://ajax.Microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.3.2-vsdoc.js
http://ajax.Microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.3.2.min-vsdoc.js
Microsoft also host jQuery Validation and jQuery UI files.
Currently Microsoft AJAX CDN hosts only jQuery version 1.3.2, but they will add
more releases in the future. To see a full list of the JavaScript libraries and their
URLs that are already hosted on CDN cache go here: www.asp.net/ajax/cdn
L A B ELS : A JA X , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, L I NK , NEW S, P ER FO R M A NC E
W ED NES D A Y, S EP T EM B ER 1 6 , 2 0 0 9
Get URL parameters & values with jQuery

In this post, I would like to share a little jQuery code snippet that makes getting
URL parameters and their values more convenient.
Recently, while working on one of my projects, I needed to read and get

parameter values from URL string of the current page that was constructed and
sent by PHP script. I came across this short and sweet JavaScript code snippet
by Roshambo that does just that.
// Read a page's GET URL variables and return them as an associat

ive array.
function getUrlVars()
{
var vars = [], hash;
var hashes = window.location.href.slice(window.location.href.
indexOf('?') + 1).split('&');
for(var i = 0; i < hashes.length; i++)
{
hash = hashes[i].split('=');
vars.push(hash[0]);
vars[hash[0]] = hash[1];
}
return vars;
}
The function returns an array/object with your URL parameters and their values.
For example, consider we have the following URL:
http://www.example.com/?me=myValue&name2=SomeOtherValue
Calling getUrlVars() function would return you the following array:
{
"me" : "myValue",
"name2" : "SomeOtherValue"
}
To get a value of first parameter you would do this:
var first = getUrlVars()["me"];
// To get the second parameter

var second = getUrlVars()["name2"];
To make the script syntax to look more jQuery like syntax I rewrote it as an
extension for jQuery:
$.extend({
getUrlVars: function(){
var vars = [], hash;
var hashes = window.location.href.slice(window.location.href.
indexOf('?') + 1).split('&');
for(var i = 0; i < hashes.length; i++)
{
hash = hashes[i].split('=');
vars.push(hash[0]);
vars[hash[0]] = hash[1];
}
return vars;
},
getUrlVar: function(name){
return $.getUrlVars()[name];
}
});
Now, if you include the above code in your javascript file, you can get URL
parameter values in the following way:
// Get object of URL parameters
var allVars = $.getUrlVars();
// Getting URL var by its nam

var byName = $.getUrlVar('name');
That’s it! You might also find the following jQuery related articles on this blogs
interesting:
1. Cross-domain AJAX querying with jQuery

2. Javascript for() loop vs jQuery .each() performance comparison
3. Create jQuery custom selectors with parameters
4. JavaScript / jQuery password generator
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T U ES D A Y, A UG US T 1 1 , 2 0 0 9
QR Code (generator) plugin for jQuery &

JavaScript
I recently came across a 2 dimensional barcode called QR Code. QR code’s are
popular in Japan and they are mainly used there to quickly get to some website
on their mobiles by simply taking a picture of the QR code. You may read more
about QR codes on Wikipedia.
Here is an example of QR code for jQuery HowTo blog:
If you have a QR code reader on your mobile take a picture of it and it will open
this website. Cool ha?!
Anyway, there are plenty of free online QR code generator sites, but no
JavaScript and jQuery plugins/functions. So, I quickly searched for a free online
QR code generator sites with “friendly” URL’s and put together a javascript and
jQuery functions that generate QR barcode image’s URL for passed URLs. I used
Kaywa & University of Bath services.
See jQuery and QR code in action o n this demo page.
Here are javascript and jQuery QR code functions:
// JavaScript function
function qrcode(url, size){
if(typeof(size) == 'undefined') size = 8;
return 'http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s='+size+'&d='+url;
}
qrcode('http://jquery-howto.blogspot.com');
// jQuery plugin
(function ($) {
$.fn.qrcode = function(url, size) {
if(typeof(size) == 'undefined') size = 8;
return 'http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s='+size+'&d='+url;
}
})(jQuery);
$().qrcode('http://www.google.com');
The code above utilizes Kaywa’s online QR code generator. You can specify
image site as the second argument to the function. The size argument mut be
between 1 and 40 and the generated image will 32 x your argument.
Here is javascript and jQuery code for University of Bath barcode

generator:
// JavaScript function
function qrcode(url){
return 'http://go.bath.ac.uk/qr/download?DATA='+url;
}
qrcode('http://jquery-howto.blogspot.com');
// jQuery plugin
(function ($) {
$.fn.qrcode = function(url) {
return 'http://go.bath.ac.uk/qr/download?DATA='+url;
}
})(jQuery);
$().qrcode('http://www.google.com');
NOTE: You can encode plain text messages. They are not limited to URLs...
L A B ELS : JA V A S CR I P T , JQ UER Y, P L UG I N, R ESO UR C E, T O O L S
T U ES D A Y, A UG US T 4 , 2 0 0 9
Can't set / change CSS background image with

jQuery problem solution
Hello everyone. I’ve been busy lately with some projects and could not write
much on “jQuery HowTo” blog. So, when I came across this little problem, I
thought I would share it with you.
Anyway, I was working on one of my projects and I needed to set a background

image using jQuery on some div . At first my background setting code looked
like this:
$('#myDiv').css('background-image', 'my_image.jpg');
// OR
$('#myDiv').css('background', 'path/to/image.jpg');
But to my surprise it didn’t do the trick. My div ’s had no background images.

FireBug showed no CSS background properties set and I could not see why
background images were not being set by jQuery. Anyway, after 10-20 minutes I
realized that jQuery sets CSS properties as key : value and in our case valued
had to be in url(image.jpg) form.
Solution to “background images are not being set” problem is to set them like
this:
$('#myDiv').css('background-image', 'url(my_image.jpg)');
// OR
$('#myDiv').css('background', 'url(path/to/image.jpg)');
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , B EG I NNER , C S S , ER R O R , J Q UER Y, T I P
T H UR S D A Y, J U L Y 2 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery.noConflict – Resolving conflicts with other

javascript libraries that use $() function
One of the reasons that make a software popular is its extensions and plugins.
jQuery has plenty of plugins that do almost anything you want, from simple
button hide to full blown galleries. Plugins let non developers easily add
functionality they need to their websites and there are times when one might
include more than one javascript library such as prototype.js, YUI or mootools
with jQuery. They all use $ as their main function name. Including second library
might brake the behavior of the first one. To resolve such cases jQuery
introduces .noConflict() method.
When you call .noConflict() jQuery will return $() to it’s previous owner and
you will need to use jQuery() instead of shorthand $() function.
.noConflict() usage example (From jQuery Docs site)
<html>
<head>
<script src="prototype.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script>
jQuery.noConflict();
// Use jQuery via jQuery(...)
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
jQuery("div").hide();
});
// Use Prototype with $(...), etc.
$('someid').hide();
</script>
</head>
<body></body>
</html>
You can also use the following code snippets to still use $() in your code, but
with one drawback, you will not have access to your other library’s $() method.
// Method 1
jQuery(document).ready(function($){
$("div").hide();
});
// Method 2
(function($) {
/* some code that uses $ */
})(jQuery);
TIP:
Don’t forget that you can always assign jQuery to any other variable name to use
it as your shorthand: var $_ = jQuery;
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W ED NES D A Y, J UL Y 1 , 2 0 0 9
Identifying & locating mouse position in jQuery

While writing the next jQuery tutorial I needed to identify and locate where the
mouse was on the page. Tracking mouse position on the page with jQuery is
easy. You don’t need to check what browser the script is running like it is used
to be with plain JavaScript. To identify where the mouse is in jQuery all you have
to do is to read event object’s .pageX and .pageY properties.
Example:
$().mousemove(function(e){
// e.pageX - gives you X position
// e.pageY - gives you Y position
});
The above jQuery code is binding a new ‘on mouse move’ event to the current
document and triggered every time mouse moves. The coordinates are calculated
in pixels from top left corner of the document. See the above code in action.
You may also want to know the coordinates of the mouse relative to some <div>
or an element. Since jQuery returns mouse position relative to the document
root, by subtracting element’s position from document root you get mouse
positions relative to that element. Long story short here is the code to do just
that:
$("#someDiv").click(function(e){
var relativeX = e.pageX - this.offsetLeft;
var relativeY = e.pageY - this.offsetTop;
});
Don’t forget that you can bind any mouse event to any element and then get
mouse positions. You can easily create a draggable object with click and
mousemove events by simply setting the CSS top and left values to .pageX and
.pageY.
Anyway, that’s how you locate and handle mouse positions in jQuery. As
always, you don’t need to worry about cross browser compatibility issues while
using jQuery. To learn more see more examples here.
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , B EG I NNER , EV ENT S , HO W T O , JQ UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T UT O R I A L
W ED NES D A Y, J UN E 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery custom selectors with parameters

My last tutorial on how to create a custom jQuery selector showed you the
basics of creating custom filters in jQuery. Now, it is time to get more serious
with selectors and create more advanced jQuery selectors – custom jQuery
selectors with parameters. To get an idea of what I am talking about think of
:contains(someText) selector.
Anyway, let’s create our own jQuery selector that takes arguments. The basic
syntax is the same:
$.expr[':'].test = function(obj, index, meta, stack){

/* obj - is a current DOM element
index - the current loop index in stack
meta - meta data about your selector !!!
stack - stack of all elements to loop
Return true to include current element

Return false to explude current element
*/
};
meta is a parameter we are interested in. meta is an array that carries an

information about our selector. Here is what it looks like:
$('a:test(argument)');
//meta would carry the following info:
[
':test(argument)', // full selector
'test', // only selector
'', // quotes used
'argument' // parameters
]
$('a:test("arg1, arg2")');
//meta would carry the following info:
[
':test('arg1, arg2')', // full selector
'test', // only selector
'"', // quotes used
'arg1, arg2' // parameters
]
Here as you can see, we can make use of the arrays fourth (meta[3] ) value to
get a hang of our parameters.
Creating custom jQuery selector with parameters

Now, let’s improve our selector from previous post that selects all links with non
empty rel attribute and make it select any element with specified non empty
attribute. Here is the code to do just that:
$.expr[':'].withAttr = function(obj, index, meta, stack){

return ($(obj).attr(meta[3]) != '');
};
See it in action here.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , I NS I G HT S, J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, SEL EC T O R S , T I P , T UT O R I A L
T H UR S D A Y, J U NE 1 1 , 2 0 0 9
Find & select all external links with jQuery

Selecting all external links and amending them in some way is probably one of
the most used jQuery tutorials. By selecting all anchor links on the page and for
example adding a CSS class with only one jQuery line shows how jQuery is
simple and powerful. Also if you are progressively enhancing your website this is
one of the trick you might use.
Actually, I had to select all external links and add an image that indicates it the
other day. So, I created a custom jQuery selector called :external that makes
finding external links easier for you. (Read “Custom jQuery Selectors” post to
learn how to create your own custom selectors)
External links custom jQuery selector code:
// Creating custom :external selector

$.expr[':'].external = function(obj){
return !obj.href.match(/^mailto\:/)
&& (obj.hostname != location.hostname);
};
// Add 'external' CSS class to all external links

$('a:external').addClass('external');
You can see this code in action here.
You may use the code above to:
Add CSS class to all external links

Dynamically add an image after the link to indicate that it is an external
link
Bind a click event to track what links where clicked
etc.
Update: The return part was update to take into the account the mailto links as
suggested in comments by Phillipp and Karl below.
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W ED NES D A Y, J UN E 1 0 , 2 0 0 9
Custom jQuery selectors

jQuery makes it easy to select elements you need using CSS selectors. It is
undoubtedly one of the jQuery features that makes it a great javascript library.
On top of standard CSS selectors jQuery introduces some custom selectors
that makes your code even more simpler and easier to read.
Examples of custom jQuery selectors are: :header , :even , :odd , :animated ,

:contains(text) , etc.
And the best part is that jQuery lets you create and define your own custom
selectors using custom selector creation template below.
jQuery Custom Selector Creation Template:

$.expr[':'].test = function(obj, index, meta, stack){
// obj - is a current DOM element
// index - the current loop index in stack
// meta - meta data about your selector
// stack - stack of all elements to loop
// Return true to include current element

// Return false to explude current element
};
// Usage:
$('.someClasses:test').doSomething();
Let’s now create a very simple custom selector using the template above. Let’s
say we want a custom jQuery selector that will return elements with nonempty
rel attribute.
$.expr[':'].withRel = function(obj){
var $this = $(obj);
return ($this.attr('rel') != '');
};
// Usage:
$('a:withRel').css('background-color', 'yellow');
The code above creates a custom selector that will select only elements with not
empty rel attributes. Here is the above code’s demo page.
You might also be interested in reading about jQuery custom functions.
UPDATE: Read about creating custom jQuery selectors with parameters.
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Mozilla Jetpack & jQuery

Jetpack is a new product of Mozilla Labs. It is basically a new way to create
Firefox plugins using web programming languages like HTML, CSS and
JavaScript. The idea behind is the same as for Adobe AIR. If you know HTML,
CSS and JavaScript you can build a Firefox plugin in no time.
The bad news is that Jetpack is still in early developer testing stage, so it is not
available in Firefox yet. The good news is that Jetpack is using jQuery and you
can use it to do all kinds of stuff like responding to user click events, manipulate
any website DOM elements and use cross-site XMLHttpRequest object, etc.
Besides, Jetpack can be setted up to use other javascript libraries such as
prototype.js, dojo.js etc. and third party API libraries such as Twitter, Google,
etc. API libraries.
Where to go from here?

If you want to learn more about Jetpack and how to use jQuery with it refer to this
links:
1. Watch this Jetpack video

Good starting point to get an idea of what Jetpack is and how jQuery is
used within it. Also good starting point to understand what kind of things
can be don with Jetpack.
2. Read Jetpack tutorial
Official Jetpack introduction tutorial from Jetpack team. Probably the first
article you must read about developing for Jetpack.
3. Jetpack API documentation
A list of global variables that are available in your Jetpacks. Currently it
has a very limited global variables and functions.
4. Jetpack plugin for your Firefox
If you want to develop Jetpacks you need to install this Firefox plugin.
5. Available Jetpack to investigate the code here and here.
Most developers prefer understanding the logic and learning by
investigating someone else’s code easier.
I am planning to post more Jetpack tutorials on this blog and try to show what
kind of things can be done using Jetpack and jQuery. Keep tuned by following
me on Twitter (@jQueryHowto) or subscribe to blog’s RSS.
L A B ELS : I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, L I NK , N EW S , P LUG I N, R EFER ENC E, R ES O UR C E
T H UR S D A Y, J U NE 4 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery Beginner tutorials

This post is about a decision I made yesterday to post more jQuery beginner
tutorials on the blog.
See a list o f all jQuery beginner tutorials o n this blog.
There were two reasons for me making this decision:
1. People are finding this jQuery blog searching for jQuery basics
Analyzing my Google Analytics account I found that a lot of developers
who are landing on this blog through search are jQuery Beginners and
looking for basic jQuery method explanations. So publishing more
beginner tutorials would benefit them. They would get more relevant
information from the new Beginner category posts.
2. I am being asked more and more jQuery Beginner questions
I have been quite active on Twitter (@jQueryHowto) and other online
discussion boards lately answering and helping developers with their
jQuery problems. The jQuery community on twitter is quite active and
most of the jQuery problems I came across were jQuery beginners
questions. I could not squeeze my ideas or explanations of jQuery basics
in 140 characters, so I had to search the web for explanation and post a
link to the website.
Message to non beginner readers:
I hope I will not lose intermediate and advanced jQuery developers with this
posts. I enjoy your insights and comments on my posts and actually learn a lot
more from your feedback. I will try to post no more than one beginner tutorial or
insight per my regular post. I hope for your understanding.
List of jQuery Beginner Tutorials and posts:

I actually posted several jQuery Beginner tutorials and method explanations on
this blog with backdate. I will try to keep this post updated with the links for my
beginner posts so you can bookmark this page or share it with your jQuery
beginner colleagues.
See all jQuery beginner tutorials o n this blog.
1. Using $.noConflict()
2. How to check if checkbox is checked
3. Identify how many elements were selected
4. Adding custom functions to jQuery
5. Identifying & locating mouse position in jQuery
6. How to load jQuery from Google CDN servers
7. Setting HTML tag’s attribute in jQuery
8. Getting HTML tag’s attribute in jQuery
9. Binding jQuery events to AJAX loaded elements
10. How to disable and enable an element
11. Quick tip to solve a problem with setting CSS background image to an
element
L A B ELS : B EG I NNER , N EW S , T UT O R I A L
T U ES D A Y, J UNE 2 , 2 0 0 9
Javascript for() loop vs jQuery .each()

performance comparison
This post is an outcome of 15 minutes of free time and a question that I had
yesterday. This question were:
1. How fast jQuery’s .each() method is?

2. How does it compare to javascript’s native for loop?
It is clear without any performance tests that native javascript for loop is faster,
but I always used jQuery’s .each() utility with caution. It always felt like I will
get a performance penalty for using it. So I tried to never use it.
So today, I wrote up a little javascript performance test and got my answers.

Basically, I created an array and iterated through it using native for loop and
jQuery’s .each() iterator. All I did was just an iteration and no array
amendments or any other logic. I know it is very basic, but that’s exactly what I
want to know. How fast they iterate!
Performance test code:

console.time('TestNative');
length = myArray.length;
for( i=0; i < length; i++){
myArray[i];
}
console.timeEnd('TestNative');
console.time('TestjQuery');
jQuery.each(myArray, function(i, val) {
val;
});
console.timeEnd('TestjQuery');
Performance test results:

JavaScript Native FOR loop
Array size Time

========== ======
10,000 7ms
100,000 62ms
1,000,000 613ms
jQuery .each() loop
Array size Time

========== ======
10,000 10ms
100,000 177ms
1,000,000 1100ms
As you can see native for loop is never over 1ms. That’s probably because we
are not doing anything with our array and browser simply optimizes the code or
maybe its that fast :)
Usually we don’t have more than 1000 items in our arrays and objects, that is
why I guess it can be concluded that using .each() loop in our code will
not cause any performance penalties.
L A B ELS : I NS I G HT S , JA V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, P ER FO R M A NC E, R EFER ENC E, T ES T , T I P
FRI DAY, M AY 29, 2009
Tip for jQuery & handheld device developers

This week’s usual “Friday short post” about using jQuery in handheld
devices. If you are a developer who is using jQuery in applications that were
developed for use in environments with small processing power such as handheld
devices, mobile phones, PDA’s, etc. you will find this post useful.
Anyway, back to the topic. For whatever reasons you chose to use jQuery in
your application (I would suggest using plain javascript for better performance)
jQuery effects such as animation, hide and show, etc. most likely were probably
one of the reasons. Unfortunately, jQuery effects are process intensive and in
“slow” environments it is recommended to turn them off. Fortunately, jQuery
provides you with such a method. It lets you disable all animations and effects by
changing jQuery.fx.off setting to true .
// Dissable all effects

jQuery.fx.off = true;
// Shorthand
$.fx.off = true;
Now all your effects such as fadeIn() , fadeOut() , slideDown() , slideUp() ,
etc. will not be animated. They will simply be hidden and shown immediately (by
changing CSS rules display:none; display:block; ) to save CPU processing
time.
NOTE:
By setting the jQuery.fx.off back to false you enable all animations and
effects.
L A B ELS : A NI M A T I O N, HO W T O , I NS I G HT S, J Q UER Y, P ER FO R M A NC E, R EFER ENC E, T I P
W ED NES D A Y, M A Y 2 7 , 2 0 0 9
Google Feeds API - jQuery plugin

This jQuery plugin utilizes Google’s Feeds API and builds an abstraction layer
that makes Google feed API easier to use for jQuery developers. The
advantage of using this lightweight jQuery plugin is that you don’t have to learn
and go through new API documentation.
Do wnload Go ogle Feed A PI jQuery plugin – jGFeed.
Here is how to use the plugin:

$.jGFeed('http://feeds.feedburner.com/jQueryHowto',
function(feeds){
// Check for errors
if(!feeds){
// there was an error
return false;
}
// do whatever you want with feeds here
for(var i=0; i<feeds.entries.length; i++){
var entry = feeds.entries[i];
// Entry title
entry.title;
}
}, 10);
Available plugin arguments list:

jQuery Google Feed API plugin lets you specify the following settings:
url – URL of the feed that you want to load

callback – callback function to call after RSS feed is loaded
num (optional) – number of blog entries to load (defaults to 3)
key (optional) – Google API key to use while loading RSS feeds.
The plugin returns false if there was an error while AJAX loading your feed or the
following feed object on success:
{
"title":"Blog Title",
"link":"http://www.example.com",
"author":"Author Name",
"description":"Blog description.",
"type":"RSS type (atom10, etc.)",
"entries":[
{
"title":"Blog entry title 1",
"link":"http://www.example.com/entry-1.html",
"author":"Post Author Name",
"publishedDate":"Mon, 25 May 2009 07:07:00 -0700",
"contentSnippet":"Short blog post snippet ...",
"content":"Longer snippet of the blog post",
"categories":[
"category 1",
"category 2",
"category 3"
]
},
{
"title":"Blog entry title 2",
"link":"http://www.example.com/entry-2.html",
"author":"Post Author Name",
"publishedDate":"Mon, 25 May 2009 07:07:00 -0700",
"contentSnippet":"Short blog post snippet ...",
"content":"Longer snippet of the blog post",
"categories":[
"category 3",
"category 2",
"category 1"
]
},
...
}
If you don’t specify a URL it will also return false. If you want to use your own
Google Feed API key you can get one here.
L A B ELS : A JA X , J Q UER Y, J S O N, P L UG I N
M O ND A Y, M A Y 2 5 , 2 0 0 9
diggthis.js + jQuery .wrap() is not working,

causing Firefox to freeze and Safari to crush
I came across a forum post where user was experiencing problems while using
Digg this (diggthis.js) button code with jQuery’s .wrap() method. According to
him Mozilla Firefox (FF) is freezing and Apple Safari is crushing when he tries to
wrap the div that contains diggthis.js file with another new div like so:
<div class="rounded">
<script type="text/javascript">
digg_url = "myURL.com";
</script>
<script src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/java
script"></script>
</div>
And the jQuery code is:
$(document).ready(function(){
$("div.rounded").wrap('<div></div>');
});
This code seems to crush those browsers. Another way to do this is to remove
the div that contains the script (.rounded ), then create a new <div> and then
insert the removed div (.rounded ) back into the newly created div like this:
$("div.rounded").remove().wrap('<div></div>').appendTo("#some
where");
});
L A B ELS : DO M , ER R O R , J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
Remove n’th table column - jQuery plugin

My usual short Friday post. Today I would like to share with you a new utility I
wrote to work with HTML tables. We already have jQuery functions to add table
row, remove table row (on user click), add table row number plugin and now here
is jQuery code to remove table column.
jQuery utility to remove table’s n’th column:

$.fn.removeCol = function(col){
// Make sure col has value
if(!col){ col = 1; }
$('tr td:nth-child('+col+'), tr th:nth-child('+col+')', this)
.remove();
return this;
};
Just add this code to your javascript file and use it in your jQuery code like this:
// Remove all table's second columns

$('table').removeCol(2);
// Remove table's first column (default)

$('table').removeCol();
The function takes column number to delete as an argument and removes that
column. If you don’t supply any column number it removes the first table column
by default.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , HT M L, J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E
T H UR S D A Y, M A Y 2 1 , 2 0 0 9
Remove table row on user click

This post is about removing a table row on user click. I needed this functionality
for a project of mine. Online application had a table with data that user can
dynamically add and remove. With progressive enhancement I also need to add a
functionality to one of the tables that enables users to delete table rows when
that table row is clicked.
jQuery code to delete clicked table row came out to be surprisingly short,
only 3 lines of code.
// Select all table cells to bind a click event

$('table td').click(function(){
$(this).parent().remove();
});
Here, we are first selecting all table cells to bind our click event. On user click to
any table cell click event fires. In the click event we are removing <td> ’s parent,
which is <tr> , thus removing whole row.
By popular user demand I’m including an example that lets deleting a table
row on delete image click. Here is our HTML table:
<table>
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td><img class="delete" src="del.gif" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td><img class="delete" src="del.gif" /></td>
</tr>
</table>
Here is jQuery code to delete a row on delete image click:
$('table td img.delete').click(function(){
$(this).parent().parent().remove();
});
See demos here.
Bonus: Also delete a table row from database

The code above is enough if you don’t need to also delete a record from your
database table. In my case I had to set up a server side code to do that. With
one extra AJAX call to my server side script the functionality was ready.
$('table td').click(function(){
$.get('deleteRow.php', {id: $(this).parent().attr('id')},
function(){
$(this).parent().remove();
});
});
In the jQuery code above, instead of removing table row straight away we are
making an AJAX call to our server side code that also removes that row from our
database and then on AJAX call completion we removing table row.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , HT M L, J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N
jYouTube - jQuery YouTube Thumbnail plugin.

Gets any YouTube video’s image/thumbnail
Writing short scripts and jQuery tips on Fridays became some kind of habit. So
this Friday I will give you a small jQuery utility function that will give you a way to
get any YouTube video’s still image or in other words any YouTube video’s
thumbnail. All you need to know is that YouTube video’s URL address or at least
video’s YouTube ID.
Couple of months ago I wrote a javascript function that does just that, gets
YouTube video’s thumbnail. Today, I am rewriting that code as a jQuery utility
function and releasing it as jQuery plugin called jYouTube.
Do wnload jQuery Y outube plugin - jY o uTube
It takes any YouTube video URL or video ID as first parameter and thumbnail size
(big or small) as the second parameter. Utility returns that video’s screenshot
URL.
Here is how you use jYouTube plugin in your own code:
// Returns big screenshot by video id

$.jYoutube('rSUfWXcNAOw');
// Returns small thumbnail by YouTube video URL

$.jYoutube('http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSUfWXcNAOw', 'small')
;
So here is the final jQuery YouTube plugin code for those who are interested:
$.extend({
jYoutube: function( url, size ){
if(url === null){ return ""; }
size = (size === null) ? "big" : size;

var vid;
var results;
results = url.match("[\\?&]v=([^&#]*)");
vid = ( results === null ) ? url : results[1];
if(size == "small"){
return "http://img.youtube.com/vi/"+vid+"/2.jpg";
}else {
}
}
});
Y ou might also be interested in jQuery Twitter plugin.

Gets any Twitter user information and tweets (does not require API key).
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N, T O O L S
T U ES D A Y, M A Y 1 2 , 2 0 0 9
Replacing images at time intervals

This post is somehow a continuation of our previous post on replacing images,
but this post is one step closer to creating an image gallery using jQuery. In this
post I will show you how to replace one image with another one in specific time
intervals. For example: replacing image1.jpg with image2.jpg every 5 seconds.
In javascript, whenever one says “every X seconds” or “time intervals” s/he is

talking about javascript’s setInterval() function and this post is no exception.
So, before we continue, we need to define where our images are coming from.
Images URLs can be stored in javascript array or we could choose more elegant
way and simply read them from HTML document.
Imagine we have this HTML markup:
<div id="myGallery">
<img src="image1.jpg" class="active" />
<img src="image2.jpg" />
</div>
We need to hide all images but class="active" one and overlay all of them on
one another. Here is a CSS to do that:
#myGallery{
position:relative;
width:400px; /* Set your image width */
height:300px; /* Set your image height */
}
#myGallery img{
display:none;
position:absolute;
top:0;
left:0;
}
#myGallery img.active{
display:block;
}
Now, lets write jQuery function that will fade out currently active image and fade
in the next image. Here is jQuery code:
function swapImages(){
var $active = $('#myGallery .active');
var $next = ($('#myGallery .active').next().length > 0) ? $('#m
yGallery .active').next() : $('#myGallery img:first');
$active.fadeOut(function(){
$active.removeClass('active');
$next.fadeIn().addClass('active');
});
}
And now all that’s left is to add setInterval() with our function and the time interval
we want our image to fade out and fade in.
// Run our swapImages() function every 5secs

setInterval('swapImages()', 5000);
Now we have gallery/slideshow with images changing every 5 seconds. You can
easily customize this jQuery script to create your own slideshow.
Here is how your final code should look like:

<html>
<head>
<script src="jquery.js">
</script>
<script>
function swapImages(){
var $active = $('#myGallery .active');
var $next = ($('#myGallery .active').next().length > 0) ? $
('#myGallery .active').next() : $('#myGallery img:first');
$active.fadeOut(function(){
$active.removeClass('active');
$next.fadeIn().addClass('active');
});
}
// Run our swapImages() function every 5secs
setInterval('swapImages()', 5000);
}
</script>
<style>
#myGallery{
position:relative;
width:400px; /* Set your image width */
height:300px; /* Set your image height */
}
#myGallery img{
display:none;
position:absolute;
top:0;
left:0;
}
#myGallery img.active{
display:block;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="myGallery">
<img src="image1.jpg" class="active" />
</div>
</body>
</html>
The code above is simplified.
L A B ELS : A NI M A T I O N, CS S, HO W T O , HT M L , J Q UER Y, T UT O R I A L
T H UR S D A Y, M A Y 7 , 2 0 0 9
Disable submit button on form submit

Form submission is one of the most used actions and double form submission is
one of most occurred problems in web development. Rather than dealing with this
problem server side, eating up your CPU process time, it is much easier and
better to deal with this problem client side using JavaScript. When we talk
javascript, what it a better way to write it other than using jQuery?!
So this Friday’s quick tip is disabling form submit button on its click or
preventing double form submission by disabling submit button.
Consider we have this HTML form in our code:
<form id="myform" action="someUrl.php" method="get">

<input name="username" />

<input id="submit" type="submit" />
</form>
Here is a jQuery code that disables submit button on form submission:
$('#myform').submit(function(){
$('input[type=submit]', this).attr('disabled', 'disabled');
});
The above jQuery code binds a submit event to our #myform form, then finds its
submit button and disables it.
Bonus: disable submit button on form submission for all

forms on your page.
// Find ALL <form> tags on your page
$('form').submit(function(){
// On submit disable its submit button
$('input[type=submit]', this).attr('disabled', 'disabled');
});
Want to disable any other elements using jQuery? Read my previous “Disabling
and enabling elements in jQuery” (very short) post.
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , EV ENT S , HO W T O , HT M L, T I P , T UT O R I A L , W O R K A R O UND
Remove the bottom table row using jQuery

I have posted a small jQuery code a while ago which adds a table row at the
bottom of any given table. The code takes into the consideration tbody tag and
also can be used as a jQuery plugin.
Recently I was asked to write a jQuery or JavaScript code that removes the
last/bottom row from the given table. The jQuery code I wrote was surprisingly
small.
jQuery code to remove bottom/last table row

// Simple bottom row removal
$('#myTable tr:last').remove();
// Removing n'th (ex. 3rd) row from the table

$('#myTable tr:eq(2)').remove();
Improved jQuery code

We can improve our simple bottom row removal code to take into the
consideration the possible <tbody> and <tfoot> HTML tags that can be found in
tables.
// Improved code that takes into the consideration

// the <tbody> tag
$('#myTable').each(function(){
if($('tbody', this).length > 0){
$('tbody tr:last', this).remove();
}else {
$('tr:last', this).remove();
}
});
// Improved code that for n'th row removal

// In this example we are removing 3rd row
$('#myTable').each(function(){
$('tbody tr:eq(2)', this).remove();
}else {
$('tr:eq(2)', this).remove();
}
});
Bonus JavaScript function

You can also turn the code above into the jQuery plugin or JavaScript function.
Here is a JavaScript function to remove the bottom table row (you can
amend the code to make it remove n’th row).
/*
Remove the last/bottom table row
*/
function removeTableRow(jQtable){
jQtable.each(function(){
$('tbody tr:last', this).remove();
}else {
$('tr:last', this).remove();
}
});
}
// Here is how to use it

removeTableRow($('table'));
Also the above javascript function can easily be rewritten as a jQuery plugin.
Read this post to learn how to create jQuery plugins.
L A B ELS : DO M , HO W T O , HT M L , JA V A S C R I P T , JQ UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, P L UG I N, T I P ,
T UT O R I A L
W ED NES D A Y, A P R I L 2 9 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery Twitter API plugin

UPDA TE: Plugin has been updated! For more up to date information
read this post.
You might have noticed that I am talking and spending more time on Twitter
lately. I have been helping Twitter users with their jQuery related questions and
problems as well. If you are using Twitter and have some kind of jQuery related
question I will be happy to help.
Anyway, after I found a Twitter JSON(P) API url last week, I spent some time
playing with it and ended up with a jQuery plugin that when given a Twitter
username retrieves and returns javascript object with user detials such as
followers & following counts, full name, homepage URL, etc.
Do wnload jQuery Tw itter A PI - jTw itter here.

Update: No w plugin also get any number of any user's posts.
Here is an example of returned JavaScript object:
// Starting from version 1.1 plugin gets user posts

// the returned object has changed. See update.
{
"screen_name":"jqueryHowto",
"name":"jQuery HowTo",
"description":"jQuery and javascript howtos, tutorials, h
acks, tips and performanace tests. Ask your jQuery questions here
...",
"url":"http://jquery-howto.blogspot.com",
"followers_count":294,
"friends_count":120,
"favourites_count":0,
"statuses_count":154,
"location":"",
"id":26767000,
"time_zone":"Central Time (US & Canada)",
"profile_image_url":"http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_prod
uction/profile_images/110763033/jquery_normal.gif",
"notifications":false,
"utc_offset":-21600,
"following":false,
"protected":false,
"created_at":"Thu Mar 26 14:58:19 +0000 2009",
"profile_link_color":"0000ff",
"profile_sidebar_fill_color":"e0ff92",
"profile_background_tile":false,
"profile_sidebar_border_color":"87bc44",
"profile_background_color":"9ae4e8",
"profile_text_color":"000000"
"profile_background_image_url":"http://static.twitter.com
/images/themes/theme1/bg.gif",
}
As you can see the jQuery Twitter API plugin returns Twitter user's avatar URL
as well. Using this jQuery plugin you could create another plugin that would
return Twitter user's avatar image.
Y ou can see example usage and demo here.
Here is how to use jTwitter:
// I am query data for "jqueryHowto" user

$.jTwitter('jqueryHowto', function(userdata){
//Callback functn with the user data as shown above
$('#profile input.url').val(userdata.url);
$('#profile #avatar').html('<img src="'
+ userdata.profile_image_url + '" />');
});
The first parameter is a Twitter username and the second is a callback function
that will be called after jQuery gets user details from the Twitter servers.
L A B ELS : A JA X , J Q UER Y, J S O N, P L UG I N
T U ES D A Y, A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 0 9
Lock user interface plugin – uiLock

I was asked to create a user interface locker using jQuery. The main idea behind
was to lock all user interactions with the website while jQuery AJAX loads
block contents and unlock when content is loaded. So I thought I would share
the code and released it as a jQuery plugin called uiLock.
The plugin extends jQuery and adds two main functions called $.uiLock(); and
$.uiUnlock();
Here is how to use uiLock jQuery plugin:
// To lock user interface

$.uiLock();
// To unlock user interface

$.uiUnlock();
$.uiLock(); takes an HTML text argument that will be placed in the page
overlay. You can style the overlaying layer using CSS. You can change font
color, background color, etc. To style uiLocker use #uiLockId CSS selector.
For example:
#uiLockId{
background-color:red !important;
}
The plugin demo can be found in the plugin archive. Here is a screenshot of the
plugin at work:
User will not be allowed to interact with the website on the screenshot above.
Basically, we are blocking all user actions with an extra layer that uiLock jQuery
plugin adds.
Do wnload uiLo ck jQuery plugin here.
L A B ELS : A JA X , HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N, T O O L S , W O R K A R O UND
FRI DAY, AP R IL 24, 2009
Twitter JSON/JSONP API URL

It is Friday and we don’t want to read long posts and tutorials. So today’s post is
going to be short and sweet. I’ve been playing a lot with Twitter lately. I wrote
some jQuery and javascript functions that get user details, etc. I will share it with
you next week.
But for today, I would like to share Twitter’s JSON and JSONP API URL. I am
sharing it because it was hard to find it first. I actually wrote a jQuery plugin that
gets Twitter user details using my previous post on cross site AJAX querying
method. All Twitter API usage tutorials and articles I found on internet were
based on RESTful non JSONP API, so I though I'll share Twitter JSON(P) API
with you. Anyway...
Twitter JSON(P) API URL:

http://twitter.com/status/user_timeline/USERNAME.json?count=10
&callback=JSONPcallbackFunction
Here is a code to use with jQuery’s $.getJSON() function:
http://twitter.com/status/user_timeline/USERNAME.json?count=10
&callback=?
We have put ? (question mark) for callback function name so jQuery could
replace it with a dynamic one that it has created.
Update: Check o ut jQuery Twitter A PI plugin – jTw itter, that uses

this Twitter A PI.
L A B ELS : A JA X , J S O N, LI NK , R EFER ENC E, R ESO UR C E
T U ES D A Y, A P R I L 2 1 , 2 0 0 9
AJAX update content every X seconds

I was asked several times on Twitter how to update some web page section
or a block content on a page every x seconds. Some real life examples of
this functionality are Twitter search results that come out when there are new
tweets with search keyword or bit.ly real time link tracking that updates it’s
charts every 5 seconds.
It is clear without saying that we are going to update our page content using
AJAX and of course we love AJAX in jQuery flavor. So key to this functionality is
JavaScript's built-in setInterval() function. It lets you to run some javascript
function every X seconds. For example, the following code would pop alert box
every five seconds:
setInterval( "alert('Hello')", 5000 );
Now consider we want to update shouts in our shoutbox every 10 seconds.
function updateShouts(){
// Assuming we have #shoutbox
$('#shoutbox').load('latestShouts.php');
}
setInterval( "updateShouts()", 10000 );
The code above will run every 10 seconds (10,000 ms) and update the contents
of #shotbox with new shouts.
L A B ELS : A JA X , HO W T O , J Q UER Y, T I P , T UT O R I A L
T H UR S D A Y, A P R I L 1 6 , 2 0 0 9
Get geographical location (geolocation) by IP

address using jQuery
Today I came across this post called “IP Address Geolocation Javascript API :
JSON”. The author provides you with a free geolocation query URL. The API
returns the geographical location of the queried IP address with some additional
information such as:
{
'status':'ok',
'IP': '74.125.45.100',
'CountryCode': 'US',
'CountryName': 'United States',
'RegionName': 'California',
'ZipPostalCode': '94043',
'City': 'Mountain View',
'Latitude': '37.4192',
'Longitude': '-122.057'
}
// In case of an error
{
'status':'parent server not responding'
}
Update: the URL has been changed!
The JSON geolocation querying API’s address is:
http://iplocationtools.com/ip_query.php?output=json&ip=80.80.214.9
3
The URL above is dead, instead use this one:

http://www.geoplugin.net/json.gp?jsoncallback=?
And the great thing is, you can identify your website visitor’s IP and Geo location
by simply querying the API without any parameters like this:
http://iplocationtools.com/ip_query.php?output=json
Knowing your users’ IP and/or location, you might add a behavior to your website
that is specific to some location. For example, offering some advertising to US
only visitors, or popup with special offer to European users.
Anyway, here is a sample jQuery code to query the API:

// Build the URL to query
var url = "http://iplocationtools.com/ip_query.php?output=json&ca
llback=?&ip=";
// Utilize the JSONP API
if(data['status'] == 'ok'){
// Do something with the data
$('#profile #ip')
.append(data['IP']);
$('#profile #country')
.append(data['CountryName']);
}
});
Here we are not specifying any IP address in the url variable that is why it is
getting current user’s data.
L A B ELS : A JA X , HO W T O , J A V A SC R I P T , J Q UER Y, R ES O UR C E, T I P , T O O LS , T UT O R I A L
W ED NES D A Y, A P R I L 1 5 , 2 0 0 9
Shorten long URLs with jQuery & bit.ly service

I recently signed up to twitter and actively engaging with people who are
interested in jQuery. Twitter is a great service and there are all kinds of
developers who are sharing interesting links and resources. So it is some kind of
interest news group for me. Since you can only have 140 characters in your post,
sharing long links limits you. URL shortening services to the rescue. There are
lots of free URL shortening services, some are just for long URL shortening,
some provide more features like real time click tracking, geostatistics and private
URLs.
The great thing about them is that they also provide you with an API. So I
thought that there is a way we can make a use of them in our jQuery code. One
of the most popular services is bit.ly. You can read more about its API here.
I wrote a simple jQuery code that utilizes the service.
Here is an example:
(function($){
// set up default options
var defaults = {
version: '2.0.1',
login: 'bitlyapidemo',
apiKey: 'R_0da49e0a9118ff35f52f629d2d71bf07',
history: '0',
longUrl: ''
};
// Build the URL to query

var daurl = "http://api.bit.ly/shorten?"
+"version="+defaults.version
+"&longUrl="+defaults.longUrl
+"&login="+defaults.login
+"&apiKey="+defaults.apiKey
+"&history="+defaults.history
+"&format=json&callback=?";
// Utilize the bit.ly API

$.getJSON(daurl, function(data){
// Make a good use of short URL

$('#myContainer')
.append(data.results[url].shortUrl);
});
})(jQuery);
This code does not do much, but I hope you will find a good use of it in your own
applications.
L A B ELS : A JA X , HO W T O , J A V A SC R I P T , J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T I P , T O O LS , T UT O R I A L
M O ND A Y, A P R I L 1 3 , 2 0 0 9
Cross domain AJAX querying with jQuery

This post IS NOT about jQuery’s JSONP support. This post is about how to
make AJAX queries to domains other then yours. Basically how to achieve
cross domain scripting with jQuery. The technique will help you resolve the
access to restricted uri denied" code: "1012 problem.
UPDATE: If you want to get cro ss-domain RSS feeds, there is a

better way to do that w ith universal RSS to JSON converter.
Using this method for cross site scripting you will be able to:
1. Make AJAX queries to any domain even those that differ from your own;
2. Use any of $.get() , $.post() , $.ajax() , $getScript() , etc. jQuery
AJAX functions as your query method.
But all these does not come free, you will need to put a proxy to between you
and the rest of the world. This cross domain querying solution works because
you actually loading the content from your own domain. You request the URL
and the proxy script on your server actually loading the content from the internet
and passing it over to you.
I created a sample PHP proxy that I used to get related news RSS feed for one
of my projects.
The PHP script to use as a cross domain scripting proxy:

<?php
// Set your return content type
header('Content-type: application/xml');
// Website url to open

$daurl = 'http://feeds.feedburner.com/jQueryHowto';
// Get that website's content

$handle = fopen($daurl, "r");
// If there is something, read and return

if ($handle) {
while (!feof($handle)) {
$buffer = fgets($handle, 4096);
echo $buffer;
}
fclose($handle);
}
?>
I named the file proxy.php and made my AJAX request to this url. Here is a
jQuery code example:
$("#rssFeeds").load("path/to/proxy.php", function(){
// Some callback functions
});
And this is how I overcame the jQuery cross site scripting problems. The bad
news is that not all web hosting companies allow fopen() to other domains, but
enable it on request. My web server was very strict on security but the script
above worked well on it.
For fetching RSS feeds, use a better solution with universal

RSS2JSON co nverter.
L A B ELS : A JA X , ER R O R , HO W T O , J A V A S C R I P T , J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
S A T UR D A Y, A P R I L 1 1 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery image swap or How to replace an image

with another one using jQuery
Swapping one image with another is probably one of the most used javascript
techniques. Also Dreamweaver made “image replacement” even easier for non
HTML/Javascript programmers by including this feature out of the box. One thing
about Dreamweaver’s image swapping javascript is that it’s not the most beautiful
javascript code. Well, as always with anything javascript related, jQuery is to the
rescue.
jQuery makes dynamic image swapping a peace of cake. All you need to do to
replace your image with another one is to replace its src attribute. The
browser will take care of the rest.
Here is an example:
$("#myImage").attr("src", "path/to/newImage.jpg");
In the code above we are:
1. Selecting an image to be replaced;

2. Changing its src attribute to the new replacer image’s URL.
TIP:
To avoid page jumping and improve user experience it is a good idea to preload
your images before you swap them.
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , HO W T O , HT M L , JQ UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, T I P , T UT O R I A L
FRI DAY, AP R IL 10, 2009
Select text in input box on user select or focus

A colleague of mine who is not very javascript or for that matter jQuery aware
asked me to help him to do a little trick with jQuery. He needed to select the
contents of the input box when user selects it (when onfocus event is fired
basically).
Selecting a text in your inputbox on focus is easy and actually 3 lines of jQuery
code, but it add a nice usability touch to your site. This “select all” behavior is
default in browser when you browse through form fields using TAB key, but when
you click on to the input text field it does not behave like that.
jQuery code to select text inside an input field on user

click or focus:
$("#myInputField").focus(function(){
// Select input field contents
this.select();
});
// Add this behavior to all text fields

$("input[type=text]").focus(function(){
// Select field contents
this.select();
});
TIP:
Change the selector in the second example and get this behavior to password
fields, textarea fields, etc.
Also we can add a little spice into our code and only select the contents of our
text field or textarea if it has not been changed from its default original value.
// Let's add it to textarea this time

$("textarea").focus(function(){
// Check for the change
if(this.value == this.defaultValue){
this.select();
}
});
The code above selects all text content of textareas if and only if it’s value has
changed from the original one. This behavior would probably be more useful on
input fields :)
L A B ELS : EV EN T S, HO W T O , HT M L , J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
T H UR S D A Y, A P R I L 9 , 2 0 0 9
How to make jQuery / Prototype / MooTools &

others play nicely with Smarty
Smarty is the first template engine I have learned and used in my projects.
Smarty makes your PHP code cleaner and promotes the V in MVC. Here is an
example of Smarty template:
<html>
<head>
<title>User</title>
</head>
<body>
User Information:<br />
Name: {$name}
</body>
</html>
Smarty will replace the {$name} with the variable that you set in your PHP code.
Anyway, do you see the problem that might arise when you try to embed your
jQuery code or any other javascript library (like Prototype, MooTools, Extjs, etc.)
that uses $ as a function name in the <head> ?
Smarty parses the file and whenever it encounters the {$ it would try to parse it
and replace with the PHP variable like in this example here:
<html>
<head>
<title>User</title>
$(".clazz").css("color", "red");
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
Name: {$name}
</body>
</html>
The problem:
Smarty would not care that { and $ are on different lines and would see it like
{$(".clazz... . The code above would cause this Smarty error:
Fatal error: Smarty error: [in templateFile.tpl line 5]: syntax error:
unreco gnized tag: $(".clazz").css("co lor", "red");
(Smarty_Co mpiler.class.php, line 455 ) in
C:\PHP\smarty\libs\Smarty.class.php on line 1 092
The solution:
There are couple of things you can do about this problem:
1. Move your javascript (jQuery, Prototype, etc.) code into the external .js
file.
2. Use jQuery() instead of $() .
3. Use Smarty’s {literal}...{/literal} directives to tell Smarty parsing
engine that it should not interpret the code within the block.
Example:
Here is how we can rewrite our javascript code above using the 3rd tip:
<html>
<head>
<title>User</title>
{literal}
$(".clazz").css("color", "red");
});
{/literal}
</script>
</head>
<body>
Name: {$name}
</body>
</html>
L A B ELS : ER R O R , HO W T O , J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
M O ND A Y, A P R I L 6 , 2 0 0 9
Display loading GIF image while loading through

AJAX
Well, let's face it, AJAX is everywhere. Nowadays clients want AJAX "enabled"
web applications. They want their web sites to be Web2.0 and that is usually
associated with using AJAX. No doubt using AJAX to load parts of your page and
use more javascript effects, made easy by jQuery, is a great way to bring your
website to life. But we should not forget about our users and the website
usability. That is why it is a good practice to display something like text or image
that informs users that the content is being loaded or processed.
Now, let's see how can we display a loading image while requested content is
being loaded by one of the jQuery's AJAX functions. Here is what happens:
1. Something triggers AJAX request (like "search" button click);

2. We put the loading image or a text that ask for user patience to the place
where we would later insert the loaded content (or anywhere else);
3. After remote content is fully loaded, we remove/hide the loading
image/text and insert the loaded content.
To make it more apparent, imagine we have HTML page with this markup:
<button id="btnLoad">Load Content</button>

<div id="content">
Please click "Load Content" button to load content.
</div>
We want to load content when a user clicks on the "Load Content" button. So we
need to bind a click event to that button first and make AJAX request only after
it is fired.
$("#btnLoad").click(function(){
// Make AJAX call
$("#content").load("http://example.com");
});
The above code loads contents from http://example.com into the <div
id="content"> . While the page is being loaded we want to display our animated
GIF image in the "content". So we could further improve our code like so:
$("#btnLoad").click(function(){
// Put an animated GIF image insight of content

$("#content").empty().html('<img src="loading.gif" />');
// Make AJAX call
$("#content").load("http://example.com");
});
The .load() function would replace our loading image indicator with the loaded
content.
Final note:
You might be using jQuery’s other AJAX functions like $.ajax() , $.get() ,
$.post() , in this case use their callback function to remove loading image/text
and append your loaded data.
If you have any question, please tweet me.
L A B ELS : A JA X , HO W T O , HT M L , T I P , T UT O R I A L
T H UR S D A Y, A P R I L 2 , 2 0 0 9
Problems with jQuery mouseover / mouseout

events
Today I have a quick note for you that will probably save you time someday.
Basically it’s a workaround for a bug when you have parent element with children
elements and parent element has mouseover or mouseout event. Moving your
mouse over children elements may fire mouseout event of their parent. This is
caused by event bubbling / propagation and if you would like to have a quick
solution just read the solution at the bottom of this post. If you would like to
understand it in more details please search Google for event propagation.
The problem:
When you have mouseover and mouseout events bound to some element on you
page with children elements. Hovering over children element fires parent’s
mouseover and/or mouseout event.
The solution:
The solution to this error is to use mouseenter and mouseleave events instead of
mouseover and mouseout .
The reason:
This solution works because mouseover and mouseout events do not bubble from
child to parent element.
L A B ELS : EV EN T S, J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
W ED NES D A Y, A P R I L 1 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery AJAX functions (load(), $.get(), etc.) are

not loading new page versions problem
Today I would like to share with you a quick solution to the common problem
when your AJAX calls to some page that changes over time is not being loaded
to your page. In other words, jQuery or your browser is not loading new version of
the page.
This problem is common in Mozilla Firefox (FF). Internet Explorer (IE) users I
believe, do not experience this problem. Usually it occurs when you use jQuery
AJAX functions in javascript setInterval() method. Basically, what happens is that
Firefox can not see the changes been made to the page and thinks it’s the same
with the old one. So Firefox loads it from cache and you don’t see the new
version of your page. To resolve this issue, you should simply add a random
string to the request like below.
The solution:
// Reload mypage.html every 5 seconds

var refresh = setInterval(function()
{
// Minimized code, suggested by Kovacs
$('#mydiv').load("mypage.htm?" + 1*new Date() );
}, 5000);
L A B ELS : A JA X , ER R O R , HO W T O , I NS I G HT S , J A V A S C R I P T , J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
M O ND A Y, M A R C H 3 0 , 2 0 0 9
Use different CSS rules / styles in JavaScript or

jQuery enabled browsers
This is a simple yet very useful and powerful technique. Using different CSS rules
in JavaScript or jQuery enabled browsers lets you customize your website style
for JS enabled and disabled browsers using only CSS. Thus you separate
concerns of styling and business logic into CSS and javascript. This lets you
concentrate on your goals and not styling in your javascript code for example.
All you need to do is to add some class or id to body element using

javascript/jquery to specify that javascript/jQuery is available. Then define two
rules in you CSS files for js enable and disabled browsers.
Here is an example for Javascript enabled browser:
document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].setAttribute("class", "j
s");
And in your CSS file:
.someClass{
display:block;
}
.js .someClass{
display:none;
}
Why do I need to have a different CSS styles for jQuery/javascript enabled

browser you might ask. Consider you have a drop-down menu on your website’s
sidebar and you would like to use jQuery/Javascript to make it drop down on
mouse hover. You don’t want to hide (display:none ) all submenus’ by default.
That would make your website not accessible if user has disabled Javascript on
his/her browsers.
Similar to previous example, we can use difference CSS style for jQuery enabled
browsers.
if(jQuery){
jQuery("body").addClass("jq");
}
And in your CSS file:
.someClass{
display:block;
}
.jq .someClass{
display:none;
}
L A B ELS : CSS , HO W T O , HT M L , J A V A S C R I P T , J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
S UN D A Y, M A R C H 2 9 , 2 0 0 9
“jQuery HowTo” on Twitter

Lately there is a lot of buzz about Twitter. It seems everybody is on Twitter,
twittering… So I started investigation what all that buzz was about and what I
could have done with it. Several days later I found myself twittering.
Twitter is a great place to build your community of interest. For example if you
are interested in jQuery than you can follow people who share tweets about
jQuery/JavaScript and follow them. Examples could be the official jQuery and
jQuery HowTo accounts.
Also, you can use WeFollow service to find people to follow by their interests.
There are lots of other services that utilize Twitter API and provide great services.
I added retweet button to my posts. If you like them, please retweet.
L A B ELS : NEW S
T H UR S D A Y, M A R C H 2 6 , 2 0 0 9
Check if jQuery plugin is loaded

The previous post checked if jQuery is loaded, now it is time to check if particular
jQuery plugin is loaded. Checking if plugin exists or if plugin has been already
loaded is useful if you are writing your jQuery code that depends on that plugin.
Here is how to check if some jQuery plugin is loaded or not:
if(jQuery().pluginMethod) {
//jQuery plugin exists
} else {
//jQuery plugin DOES NOT exist
}
As you know from previous post on namespacing javascript plugins are created
as an additional namespace within jQuery namespace. All you have to do to
check if plugin exists is to check if it’s namespace / function is defined.
For example, let’s assume that my plugin depends on jQuery Validation plugin.
To check if validation plugin is loaded I would do the following:
if(jQuery().validate) {
// Validation plugin exists
// Now I can use $('#someId').validate()
} else {
// Validation plugin DOES NOT exist
}
L A B ELS : HO W T O , I NS I G HT S, J Q UER Y, P L UG I N , T I P , W O R K A R O UND
W ED NES D A Y, M A R C H 2 5 , 2 0 0 9
Adding and using jQuery on Blogger / Blogspot

Investigating my visitors statistics, I noticed that there were some users who
were interested in adding and using jQuery on their Blogger.com (Blogspot.com)
accounts. Adding jQuery library to your Blogger/Blogspot blog is not difficult. All
you have to do is to add one line of code to your template’s header.
Here is the code to add to your blogger template’s header:
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jq
uery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
NOTE:
You don’t even need to upload jquery.js file on any other hosting Google will host
it for your.
Instruction for adding jQuery to Blogger:
1. Login to your dashboard;

2. Choose your blog;
3. From the top menu select “Layout”;
4. Then select “Edit HTML” sub-menu;
5. Add the above code just below <head> tag (or alternatively, just above
</head> tag)
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
T U ES D A Y, M A R C H 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
Check if jQuery.js is loaded

This is the very basics of any programming language, checking if some class,
method, variable or property does already exist. In our case the programming
environment is JavaScript and the object we are checking for existence is
jQuery() / $() function.
This method is no t limited to jQuery o nly, you c an chec k for any

other variable or functio n in your javascript.
Anyway, jQuery() or $() functions will only be defined if they are already loaded
into the current document. So to test if jQuery is loaded we can use 2 methods.
Method 1:
if (jQuery) {
// jQuery is loaded
} else {
// jQuery is not loaded
}
Method 2:
if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') {

// jQuery is not loaded
} else {
// jQuery is loaded
}
NOTE:
Here we are checking for jQuery function being defined or not. This is a safe way
to check for jQuery library being loaded. In case you are not using any other
javascript libraries like prototype.js or mootools.js, then you can also check for $
instead of jQuery .
You can also check if particular jQuery plugin is loaded or not.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, T ES T , T I P , W O R K A R O UND
M O ND A Y, M A R C H 2 3 , 2 0 0 9
Dynamically creating input box/checkbox/radio

button... does not work in Internet Explorer (IE)
While working on some project, trying to create a checkbox and radio button
dynamically using jQuery I came across a problem. Mozilla Firefox, Opera and
Safari were creating and rendering my new checkboxes just fine, but Internet
Explorer (IE6, IE7) did not create them. I spend half a day trying to figure out
what is wrong with my jQuery or JavaScript code. Some hours later, I remember,
I came across a post saying that IE can not create a general DOM input form
element and then assign it a type (checkbox, radio, text, password, etc)
attribute.
What you need to do when you are creating a new checkbox or radio button set
with jQuery is to define the type attribute while creating like so:
$('<input type="checkbox" />');

// Create and then set any other attributes
$('<input type="checkbox" />').attr('id', 'newBox');
Problem:
Can not create a new input form fields using jQuery or newly created checkboxes
and radio buttons are not displayed/created.
Solution:
To solve the problem you need to create an input field with type attribute
already defined.
L A B ELS : DO M , ER R O R , HO W T O , HT M L , J Q UER Y, M A NI P ULA T I O N, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
FRI DAY, M ARC H 20, 2009
jQuery UI 1.7.1 released

The first maintenance release for jQuery UI 1.7 has been released. You can
download jQuery UI 1.7.1 from the following links:
Uncompressed:
http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.1/jquery-ui.js
Compressed: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.1/jquery-
ui.min.js
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y UI , NEW S
M O ND A Y, M A R C H 1 6 , 2 0 0 9
Only the last element is bound/inserted/etc. in

your javascript code’s “for” loop
There is a common problem when you use javascript for loop to bind an event
function or add a class that comes from looping selection’s attributes.
To make clear what I mean consider this example:
var lis = $('ul li');
for (var i = 0; i<lis.length; i++) {

var id = lis[i].id;
lis[i].onclick = function () {
alert(id);
};
} // All li's get and alert the last li's id
There is no obvious code syntax nor logical problem in this code. But you still
will get last li’s id in alert window whichever li you click.
The solution to this problem is to rewrite your code similar to this one:
var lis = $('ul li');
for (var i = 0; i<lis.length; i++) {

var id = lis[i].id;
lis[i].onclick = function (the_id) {
return function () {
alert(the_id);
};
}(id);
}
Here, we are introducing another anonymous function which will be called

immediately after it has been declared, because of the trailing () (in our case
(id) ) with the current id .
This solves the problem of all items in the loop getting the last
arrays/elements/etc. attribute value (id/class/etc.).
L A B ELS : EV EN T S, HO W T O , I NS I G HT S , J A V A S C R I P T , J Q UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
T H UR S D A Y, M A R C H 5 , 2 0 0 9
Convert javascript objects into arrays for better

performance
jQuery Howto blog has many posts on your javascript and jQuery code
performance. If you have read the last performance post named “5 easy tips on
how to improve code performance with huge data sets in jQuery” then you
probably got an idea that it’s better to work with arrays for better javascript
performance.
The only problem is that jQuery returns an object not an array when you select
elements. Consider you have an object with lots of entries and you have to
perform some manipulations that are available in javascript array such as
reverse , sort , join , etc. Using built in methods is much faster then those you
might write yourself. So the best thing would be converting your objects to arrays
and jQuery provides utility method that does exactly this –
jQuery.makeArray(obj) .
// From jQuery Documentation

var arr = jQuery.makeArray(document.getElementsByTagName("div"));
arr.reverse(); // use an Array method on list of dom elements
$(arr).appendTo(document.body);
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, P ER FO R M A NC E, T I P ,
W O R K A R O UND
FRI DAY, FEB RUARY 27, 2009
Preload images with jQuery

Web2.0 came with AJAX and AJAX came with its own requirements and
standards for web application developers. Now web applications are more like
desktop applications with a lot of options, dialogs and more. If you have
developed AJAX application with different user controls you surely loaded
resources such images, other javascript files on demand. This helps you keep
your application lightweight and makes its load time faster.
jQuery makes creation and loading DOM elements (in our case images) very
easy. If you need to preload an image you can use this jQuery script here:
// Create an image element

var image1 = $('<img />').attr('src', 'imageURL.jpg');
First jQuery creates a image DOM element and setting the src attribute of the
image element would tell the user browser to load that image. Thus preloading
the image.
Next you should insert your DOM element into the DOM tree using one of the
many jQuery DOM manipulation methods.
Here are some examples of how you could insert preloaded image into your
website:
var image1 = $('<img />').attr('src', 'imageURL.jpg');
// Insert preloaded image into the DOM tree

$('.profile').append(image1);
// OR
image1.appendTo('.profile');
But the best way is to use a callback function, so it inserts the preloaded image
into the application when it has completed loading. To achieve this simply use
.load() jQuery event.
// Insert preloaded image after it finishes loading

$('<img />')
.attr('src', 'imageURL.jpg')
.load(function(){
$('.profile').append( $(this) );
// Your other custom code
});
Similar how to’s:
Replace one image with another, swapping images.
L A B ELS : EV EN T S, HO W T O , J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
W ED NES D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 2 5 , 2 0 0 9
How to add more items to the existing jQuery
selection
There are occasions when you have already selected elements and need to add
more items to it. Imagine you have selected different items and have jQuery
selection object. For example:
var elms = $('#elem, .items');
Now, you need to add more new items (DOM nodes) to your section. Let’s say
you want to add .otherItems to your elms selection. You could achieve it by
using one of these methods:
elms.add('.otherItems');
$('.otherItems').add(elms); // The same as above
The post title for the second method would be “How to add jQuery
object/selection to the existing selection”. Anyway, it’s just wording :)
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, S ELEC T O R S, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
T U ES D A Y, F EB R U A R Y 2 4 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery For Firebug

We all use Firebug and sometimes need jQuery in pages that don’t already have
it. In such cases you can use the following javascript code or the bookmarklet
that would insert jQuery into the page’s DOM on the fly. Thus making jQuery
available for use in Firebug.
Load jQuery to Firebug

Here are two options to jQuerify any page. The code is taken from a jQuerify
javascript code snippet by John Resig.
Method 1: You can run this code to make jQuery available in Firebug:
var s = document.createElement('script');
s.setAttribute('src', 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquer
y/1.3.1/jquery.min.js');
document.body.appendChild(s);
s.onload=function(){
/*Your Code Here*/
};
void(s);
Method 2: Or you can drag this bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmarks

toolbar:
Load jQuery – When you click on this link it will load jQuery from
Google’s server and make it available in Mozilla add-on Firebug.
L A B ELS : FI R EB UG , HO W T O , I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, P L UG I N, T I P , T O O L S , W O R K A R O UND
M O ND A Y, F EB R UA R Y 2 3 , 2 0 0 9
jQuery 1.3.2 Released

It seems that the jQuery’s new maintenance release 1.3.2 has not got enough
coverage on other sites and thus a lot of developers still don’t know of it’s
release. It was released on the 20 of February and can be downloaded here:
Minified (gzipped 19KB)

For development (120KB)
Notable changes:
Faster :hidden/:visible selectors;

Faster .height()/.width() methods;
Faster selectors in IE;
and now selectors return elements in their document appearance order;
read release notes for more information on changes.
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, NEW S, P ER FO R M A NC E
Add table row using jQuery and JavaScript

I noticed that there are a lot of developers who need to dynamically add a new
table row to the bottom of their tables. I wrote a little javascript function that
takes your jQuery selection of tables and dynamically adds a table row at the
bottom of them.
jQuery add table row function definition:

/*
Add a new table row to the bottom of the table
*/
function addTableRow(jQtable){
jQtable.each(function(){
var $table = $(this);
// Number of td's in the last table row
var n = $('tr:last td', this).length;
var tds = '<tr>';
for(var i = 0; i < n; i++){
tds += '<td> </td>';
}
tds += '</tr>';
$('tbody', this).append(tds);
}else {
$(this).append(tds);
}
});
}
jQuery add table row function usage example:
addTableRow($('#myTable'));
addTableRow($('.myTables'));
L A B ELS : DO M , HO W T O , HT M L , JA V A S C R I P T , JQ UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, T I P ,
W O R K A R O UND
How to use YUICompressor to compress your

javascript code?
Since writing on this blog I posted two jQuery plugins and I needed to compress
my js files. So as jQuery documentation suggests I used YUICompressor.
YUICompressor is javascript and CSS file/code compressor written in Java
language. So to run one yourself you will need JRE installed on your machine.
Then call this command:
java -jar /path/to/yuicompressor.jar path/to/file.js -o path/to/m

inimized.file.js
Your file will be compressed and saved to path you specified as the last
parameter (in our case minimized.file.js).
Links:
1. Download YUICompressor
2. Download JRE (required to run java applications)
3. Online version of YUICompressor
L A B ELS : CSS , HO W T O , I NS I G HT S, J A V A S C R I P T , J Q UER Y, L I NK , R EFER ENC E, R ES O UR C E,
T I P , T O O LS
M O ND A Y, F EB R UA R Y 1 6 , 2 0 0 9
Font cleartype problems with fadeIn() and

fadeOut() in Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)
Have you ever noticed whenever you use jQuery's fadeIn() and fadeOut()
functions your text will become edgy. Mozilla and other seem to be rendering fine
(not sure about IE6). Anyway, to solve this problem you need to remove the
filter attribute from the DOM element that you have faded in/out.
For example:
// This causes this text glich
$("#message").fadeIn();
// This will fix it

document.getElementById("#message").style.removeAttribute("filter
");
Screenshots:
You need to remove the filter attribute after fadeIn() function has completed its
job. In other words, as a function callback. Otherwise, fadeIn()/fadeOut()
functions would change the opacity of the element, which in turn would cause the
filter attribute to be attached yet again. So, remove the attribute in function
callback like this:
$('#message').fadeIn(function(){
this.style.removeAttribute("filter");
});
L A B ELS : A NI M A T I O N, ER R O R , HO W T O , HT M L, I NS I G HT S, J A V A S C R I P T , J Q UER Y,
M A NI P UL A T I O N, R EFER ENCE, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
S A T UR D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 1 4 , 2 0 0 9
New code highlighter for Blogger.com

Hi everyone. I've spent almost a whole day updating all my posts here on jquery-
howto.blogspot.com with jQuery and javascript code. I am using lightweight
Google Code Prettify to highlight my code. Here is an example of the new
highlighter:
function JavascriptFunction() {
// Comment example
var myVariable;
var privateMethod = function(){ };
return myVariable;
}
// jQuery code sample
$.extend({
myNamespaced: function(myArg){
return 'namespaced.' + myArg;
}
});
$.myNamespaced('A'); // Another comment
L A B ELS : NEW S
Automatically add table row count column to your

tables with jQuery rowCount plugin
Some time ago I wrote a javascript code that automatically adds table row count
column to your tables. And now I thought I would compile a jQuery plugin and
submit it to the jQuery plugins repository.
Y ou can dow nlo ad jQuery ro wCo unt plugin.
The script takes into consideration your table header's row and column spans.
Features:
Gracefully degrade for those browsers that do not support javascript
Lets you keep your HTML mark up clean
Make your tabular data more usable and readable
Example code:
// Add row count
$('.myTables').rowCount();
// Provide your settings for

// column name and column style
var options = {
name: "Count",
cssClass: "countClass"
};
$('.myTables').rowCount(options);
Both options are optional. The only requirement is that you have to have
<thead> and <tbody> tags in your table HTML.
Here is the original table (to the left) and new table (to the right) with row columns
automatically added.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , HT M L, J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, P L UG I N
T H UR S D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 1 2 , 2 0 0 9
How to get a YouTube video screenshot image

(thumbnail) URL using JavaScript
YouTube is a great video service by Google. As with any other product Google
makes it easy to use its content on your own site. You can embed a YouTube
video on your own site or query YouTube API (if you have a developer key). But
what if you don't want to embed a flash video player and you only need an image
of the video. The following function returns a YouTube video's thumbnail URL.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Update: No w available as jQuery Y o uTube plugin – jY ouTube.
The javascript function:

function getScreen( url, size )
{
if(url === null){ return ""; }
size = (size === null) ? "big" : size;

var vid;
var results;
results = url.match("[\\?&]v=([^&#]*)");
vid = ( results === null ) ? url : results[1];
if(size == "small"){
}else {
}
}
You can pass a YouTube video URL or video id and the function will return a
path to the video image. The second function argument is optional. You can
specify the size of returned image. It can be big (320x240) or small (128x96),
defaults to big .
Here is an example usage:

imgUrl_big = getScreen("uVLQhRiEXZs");
imgUrl_small = getScreen("uVLQhRiEXZs", 'small');
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , R EFER ENC E, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
How to set custom rules in jQuery Validation

plugin for fields that have a period "." in their
names
We all love and use jQuery Validation plugin. For basic forms it does a great job
and works flawlessly 80% of the time. But we all work on different kinds of
projects and validation requirements change project to project.
jQuery Validation is a very flexible plugin and provides a way to easily define your
own validation rules. You can read more about jQuery Validation plugin and
custom validation rules here. It is quite straight forward.
Anyway, I was working on a project that requires the use of custom rules and I
had no control over the generated HTML code and used CSS selectors. So I had
to work with CSS classes that had period "." symbol in their names. My first
attempt failed.
Here is the code that failed. Pay attention to the selector name with the (.) in it's
name.
rules: {
user.email: {
required: true,
email: true
}
}
It is common in Java programming world that your form fields have periods (.) in
their names and this is an example of that. So to solve the problem all you
have to do is to make the object key a string like this:
rules: {
"user.email": {
required: true,
email: true
}
}
This will solve your problem and let you get on with your project. Happy coding...
L A B ELS : ER R O R , HO W T O , I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, P L UG I N, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
M O ND A Y, F EB R UA R Y 9 , 2 0 0 9
5 easy tips on how to improve code

performance with huge data sets in jQuery
Sitting on jQuery's support mailing list I noticed that developers use jQuery with
huge data sets and their code becomes very slow. Examples would be
generating very long tables with a lot of rows using AJAX to get JSON data. Or
iterating through a long (very long) list of data, etc.
So I compiled a list of 5 easy tips on how to improve your code performance

while working with huge data sets in jQuery.
1. Use JavaScript native for() loop instead of jQuery's $.each()

helper function.
Native browser functions are always faster then any other helper functions
that were built to add an abstraction layer. In case you are looping through
an object that you have received as JSON, I highly recommend you
rewrite your JSON to contain an array rather than an object.
2. Do NOT append an element to the DOM in your loop.
This one is probably one of the most important tips that will significantly
improve your code performance. It is so important that I will repeat myself.
Do not append a new element to the DOM in your loop statement. Instead
store it in a variable as text and append it to the DOM after your loop
finishes like this:
// DO NOT DO THIS
for (var i=0; i<=rows.length; i++)
{
$('#myTable').append('<tr><td>'+rows[i]+'</td></tr>');
}
// INSTEAD DO THIS
var tmp = '';
{
tmp += '<tr><td>'+rows[i]+'</td></tr>';
}
$('#myTable').append(tmp);
3. If you have a lot of elements to be inserted into the DOM, surround

them with a parent element for better performance.
When you have a lot of elements to insert into the DOM tree it takes time
to add them all. Somehow adding one element with 1000 children is faster
than adding 1000 children separately. You can search this site for
performance tests that prove it.
So, to improve our previous example's performance let's cover <tr> 's with
<tbody> tag like this:
var tmp = '<tbody>';
{
tmp += '<tr><td>'+rows[i]+'</td></tr>';
}
tmp += '</tbody>';
$('#myTable').append(tmp);
4. Don't use string concatenation, instead use array's join() method

for a very long strings.
var tmp = [];

tmp[0] = '<tbody>';
{
tmp[i] = '<tr><td>'+rows[i-1]+'</td></tr>';
}
tmp[tmp.length] = '</tbody>';
$('#myTable').append(tmp.join(''));
5. And the last but not least use setTimeout() function for your long list
looping and concatenation functions.
This will make sure that page does not freeze while it loops through the
long list of data and lets users to work with your page meanwhile.
It was well mentioned in comments that setTimeout() function should be

used to split your code processing into little chunks so your browser does
not freeze up like this:
function myFunk(data){
// do processing
if(!has_finished)
setTimeout("myFunk()", 100);
}
L A B ELS : DO M , HO W T O , I NS I G HT S , J A V A SC R I P T , J Q UER Y, M A NI P ULA T I O N,
P ER FO R M A NCE, R ES O UR CE, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
S A T UR D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 7 , 2 0 0 9
How to check jQuery version?

Sometimes you need to know what is the jQuery version that your script is
working with. This maybe useful in you jQuery plugins, so your code can utilize
the jQuery version specific code or maybe your code is running in some
environment that already has jQuery embedded in, for example Drupal CMS.
Anyway, here are two ways you can check the current jQuery version.
// Returns string Ex: "1.3.1"

$().jquery;
// Also returns string Ex: "1.3.1"

jQuery.fn.jquery;
L A B ELS : HO W T O , I NS I G HT S, J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
W ED NES D A Y, F EB R UA R Y 4 , 2 0 0 9
How to disable all jQuery animations at once

Yesterday I came across jQuery.fx.off setting in jQuery documentation. It
disables all jQuery animations effective immediately when you set it's value to
true .
Consider this code:
jQuery.fx.off = true;
$("input").click(function(){
$("div").toggle("slow");
});
Your div will be showed/hidden immediately without animation. One of the

reasons (as documentation mentions) to disable animations would be "slow"
environments.
L A B ELS : A NI M A T I O N, EV ENT S, HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P ER FO R M A NC E, R EFER ENC E, T I P
T U ES D A Y, F EB R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 9
Why should I include all my CSS files before

jQuery?
The simple answer is: "Because you have to". Since jQuery version 1.3 jQuery
does not make sure all of your CSS files are loaded before it fires .ready()
event. Here is an excerpt from jQuery 1.3 release notes:
The ready() method no longer tries to make any guarantees about

waiting for all stylesheets to be loaded. Instead all CSS files should
be included befo re the scripts on the page.
This takes us to one more of our jQuery tips.
TIP:
Include all your CSS files before jQuery file.
L A B ELS : I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T I P
M O ND A Y, F EB R UA R Y 2 , 2 0 0 9
How to get full html string including the selected

element itself with jQuery's $.html()
Sometimes you need to get the selected element's html as well when using
.html() function. To make it more clear what I mean, consider you have this
HTML markup:
<div id="top">
<div id="inner">
Some content
</div>
More content
</div>
And you need to get not only <div id="inner">Some con... but <div
id="top"><div id="inner">Some con...
Here is the code to get jQuery selector's HTML including its own:
var html = $('<div>').append($('#top').clone()).remove().html();
Here we are:
1. Cloning selected div

2. Creating a new div DOM object and appending created clone of the div
3. Then getting the contents of wrapped div (which would give us all HTML)
4. Finally removing the created DOM object, so it does not clutter our DOM
tree.
This is a little trick you can use to select self HTML with jQuery's .html()
function. But if you can you should surround your markup with some dummy div
and avoid this workaround all together. This would be much faster since jQuery
would not need to do all the DOM manipulations.
L A B ELS : DO M , HO W T O , JQ UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, S EL EC T O R S , T I P , W O R K A R O UND
FR I DA Y, J A NUA R Y 30, 2009
How to create a rounded corner box plugin with

jQuery
Recently, we have redesigned one of our projects. The task was to make the web
application to look and act more like Web2.0 app. New design looked great and
surely it had lot's of rounded corners.
Y ou can dow nlo ad jQuery Rounded Corners plugin.
First, rounded corners were done using CSS, but it got our code cluttered and it
introduced a lot of unnecessary HTML markup. Since we had full control of our
target audience's browsers and we were sure that they had JavaScript enabled
browser we chose jQuery to do all the dirty work. All we have to do to define a
box/table/anything to be in a rounded box is to give it a class "boxed" and the
rest is done with jQuery.
Here is the final rounded corners jQuery plugin code:
(function($){
$.fn.extend({
box: function() {
return $(this).each(function(){
$(this).wrap('<div class="box"><div></div><div class="tl"
></div><div class="tr"></div><div class="bl"></div><div class="br
"></div></div>');
});
}
})
})(jQuery);
CSS looks like this:
/* -- Rounded Box -- */
.box{position:relative;background-color:#eee;margin-bottom:25px;p
adding:10px;}
.box .tl,.box .tr,.box .bl,.box .br{position:absolute;width:10px;
height:10px;}
.box .tl{background-image:url(images/box-tl.gif);top:0;left:0;}
.box .tr{background-image:url(images/box-tr.gif);top:0;right:0;}
.box .bl{background-image:url(images/box-bl.gif);bottom:0;left:0;
}
.box .br{background-image:url(images/box-br.gif);bottom:0;right:0
;}
.box .bg-white{background-color:#fff;padding:10px;}
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N
W ED NES D A Y, J A N UA R Y 2 8 , 2 0 0 9
How to set default settings in your jQuery plugins

Recently we had a post about automatically adding row count to your tables and
then made a plugin out of it. We could further improve our plug-in by providing an
option to let plug-in users to overwrite default setting.
For example plugin users could provide a CSS class to set to the added column
or change the default "#" in the column header to some other meaningful text.
This is all possible by letting users of your plugin to provide their setting.
For example, in our table row count plugin, users could do this:
$('table').addCount({colName : 'Number'});
So this is how you do this:
$.fn.addCount = function(options) {
// set up default options
var defaults = {
colName: '#',
colWidth: 100,
addCssClass: true,
colClass: 'mycolumn',
};
// Overwrite default options

// with user provided ones
// and merge them into "options".
var options = $.extend({}, defaults, options);
/*
If user provided only "colName"
option then default options for
other 3 variables will be added
to "options" variable.
*/
return this.each(function() {
/* Now you can use
"options.colWidth", etc. */
console.log(options);
});
};
The key line here is var options = $.extend({}, defaults, options); This
line merges options and defaults variables adding missing properties in
options variable from defaults variable.
Here is a great example from documentation page of jQuery.extend() that

gives a good example about $.extend() method.
var empty = {}
var defaults = { validate: false, limit: 5, name: "foo" };
var options = { validate: true, name: "bar" };
var settings = $.extend(empty, defaults, options);
L A B ELS : HO W T O , I NS I G HT S, J Q UER Y, P L UG I N , T I P
M O ND A Y, J A NU A R Y 2 6 , 2 0 0 9
Namespace your JavaScript function and

variable with jQuery
We all know that global variable are evil. Namespacing your variables and
methods is now considered a good practice and shows your awareness about
the trends. Anyway, I thought how can I namespace my variables and methods
in jQuery. Well, first off, I can easily extend jQuery with custom written plugins.
$.fn.extend({
}
});
jQuery().myNamespaced('A');
$().myNamespaced('A'); // Shorthand $()
// Outputs: namespaced.A
Now my functions are namespaced and would not conflict with any other already
declared functions with the same name. This is great, but to access my
functions or variables I have to call jQuery() . The code still looks like chaining
not namespacing. To declare your variables or functions in jQuery namespace
you can extend the core jQuery object itself using jQuery.extend() rather than
jQuery.fn.extend() .
$.extend({
}
});
jQuery.myNamespaced('A');
$.myNamespaced('A'); // Shorthand
// Outputs: namespaced.A
As you can see, now I can call my functions and properties without parenthesis
after jQuery object. Now my functions have a jQuery namespace and will not
conflict with other functions that might have the same name.
TIP:
Use $.extend({}) to namespace your fields and methods.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, O O P , T I P
Dynamically adding table row count number

using JavaScript and jQuery
Now available as a ro wCount jQuery plugin.
Recently on jQuery mailing list a user asked how he/she could add a row count
in their table automatically. So I wrote a code snippet which looks like this:
$("table").each(function(){
if($(this).is('table')){
$('thead th:first-child, thead td:first-child', this).each(
function(){
if($(this).is('td'))
$(this).before('<td>#</td>');
else if($(this).is('th'))
$(this).before('<th>#</th>');
});
$('tbody td:first-child', this).each(function(i){
$(this).before('<td>'+(i+1)+'</td>');
});
}
});
});
This code was for specific case, where there is only one table on the page and it
has only one row in its header. That is why I took into the account the possibility
of row spans and multi line rows in header and rewrote the code. Then made a
plugin out of it.
So, here is the final code:
(function($){
$.fn.extend({
addCount: function() {
return $(this).each(function(){
if($(this).is('table')){
$('thead th:first, thead td:first', this).each(function
(){
if($(this).is('td'))
$(this).before('<td rowspan="'+$('thead tr').length
+'">#</td>');
else if($(this).is('th'))
$(this).before('<th rowspan="'+$('thead tr').length
+'">#</th>');
});
$('tbody td:first-child', this).each(function(i){
$(this).before('<td>'+(i+1)+'</td>');
});
}
});
}
});
})(jQuery);
To apply it to your tables use this code:
$('table').addCount();
$('.some-table-class').addCount();
$('#some-table-id').addCount();
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, M A NI P UL A T I O N, P L UG I N, T I P
Object-Oriented JavaScript, how to achieve

public properties/fields
Recently I posted my findings about private fields in JavaScript. So this is a
continuation of the post and it talks about public fields in your JavaScript code.
So here is a quick example of public properties in your code:
function User() {
// Private property
var name = '';
return {
// Public property
classVersion: '1.3',
prevVersions: ['1.2.3', '1.2', '1'],
setName: function(newName) {
name = newName;
},
getName: function() {
return name;
}
};
}
var user = new User();
user.classVersion; // 1.3
user.prevVersions; // ['1.2.3', '1.2', '1']
NOTE:
Define an object property name in your return statement and it will be accessible
from outside. In other words - public field.
Public and private methods in JavaScript

I have been talking about public and private properties so far. I guess it is time for
private and public methods. The idea behind is the same. To make a method
public you need to define it in your return object and if you want to make it private
you should declare it outside your return.
Basically:
function User() {
// Private variable
var name;
// Private method
var privateMethod = function(){
// Access to private fields
name += " Changed";
};
return {
// Public methods
name = newName;
privateMethod();
},
return name;
}
};
}
var user = new User();
user.setName("My Name");
user.getName(); // My Name Changed
As you can see, privateMethod and name are declared outside the return
object and thus they are made private. Variables declared inside the return object
are public and accessible using dot notation.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , O O P , T I P
jQuery 1.2.6 and jQuery 1.3 class selector

performance benchmark
Reading about the jQuery 1.3's new selector engine Sizzle and its speed
improvements I thought I would do a performance comparison between jQuery
1.2.6 and jQuery 1.3. I was prepared for something good, but the test results
blew my mind.
I had a page with one unordered list with 1000 items each with a class
(class="1", class="2", etc).
Here is are the tests and results:
console.time("testClass");
for(i=0;i<100;i++){
$('.'+i);
}
console.timeEnd("testClass");
/** /**
* jQuery 1.2.6 * jQuery 1.3
1235 ms 54 ms
1326 ms 52 ms
1342 ms 53 ms
======= =======
1301 ms 53 ms
*/ */
As you can see the new selector engine is freakishly fast :) Actually with this
specific test it is 25 times fast. Taking into the consideration that class selection
is one of the most used selectors, we can assume that our code will work
considerably faster.
NOTE:
I have performed the same tests with selection with id's. The result were exactly
the same (9 ms). Taking into the consideration that both versions of jQuery use
browser's built in getElementById() function for ID selections, there is not
much one can do to beat that.
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, P ER FO R M A NCE, S ELEC T O R S , T EST
T H UR S D A Y, J A NUA R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 9
Working with jQuery 1.3's new Event object

(jQuery.Event)
To start, in jQuery 1.3 event object has been normalized and wrapped into
jQuery.Event object. As it says in the documentation: " The event object is
guaranteed to be passed to the event handler (no checks for window.event
required)."
Here is an jQuery.Event object ove rview :
Attributes
1. event.type
2. event.target
3. event.relatedTarget
4. event.currentTarget
5. event.pageX/Y
6. event.result
7. event.timeStamp
Methods
1. event.preventDefault()
2. event.isDefaultPrevented()
3. event.stopPropagation()
4. event.isPropagationStopped()
5. event.stopImmediatePropagation()
6. event.isImmediatePropagationStopped()
Now , how to w ork w ith jQuery.Event object?
Anonymous functions that were bind to your elements will receive this new
(jQuery.Event) event object and can utilize it's new attributes and methods. So
your previous code will work fine (most of the time :) ).
$("a").click(function(event) {
alert(event.type);
});
The fun part starts when you trigger events with jQuery.Event. You can create
new jQuery.Event object and give it to the trigger() 'er to trigger that event.
Example:
// Create new event object

// the "new" is optional
var e = jQuery.Event("click");
// Add additional data to pass

e.user = "foo";
e.pass = "bar";
// Call your event

$("a").trigger(e);
NOTE:
You don't have to use new to create a new jQuery.Event object. It is optional.
Alternative way to pass data through event object:
$("a").trigger({
type:"click",
user:"username",
pass:"password"
});
Try to play with the new event attributes and methods. You can do all kinds of
fun things with them. Example: event.result , event.relatedTarget.
L A B ELS : EV EN T S, HO W T O , I NS I G HT S , J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E
jQuery 1.3 has been released!

Long awaited jQuery 1.3 has just been released. You can read about it on jQuery
blog and release notes.
Notable changes:
new blazingly fast selectors engine (Sizzle)

new jQuery.Event object that is available in your event functions
faster HTML injection (~6x faster)
.hide() and .show() are now much faster (~2.5x faster)
[@attr] syntax deprecated, use [attr]
and many many more. Please read release notes.
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, NEW S
Pack and minimize your JavaScript code size

In pursue for my JavaScript code performance and some questions on jQuery
mailing list I looked for and eventually came across some of the JavaScript code
packers. Here is a list of custom JavaScript code compressors available for free.
1. YUI Compressor (from Yahoo)

2. JSMin (by Douglas Crockford)
3. ShrinkSafe (from Dojo library)
4. Packer (by Dean Edwards)
According to general opinion of developers on the net (and jQuery official site)
you should use Yahoo's YUI Compressor to compress your jQuery and
JavaScript code.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , J Q UER Y, L I NK , P ER FO R M A NC E, R ESO UR C E, T I P
M O ND A Y, J A NU A R Y 1 2 , 2 0 0 9
How to check your JavaScript code for errors

There are times when you can't understand why your code is not doing what it's
supposed to do. After killing half an hour on trying to figure out what is the
problem you either give up and decide to rewrite or leave it for later. Later looking
at your code you clearly see the bug and think how you couldn't you see it.
For cases like that you can use online JavaScript code validator JSLint.
L A B ELS : ER R O R , HO W T O , J A V A S C R I P T , LI NK , R ES O UR C E, T ES T
jQuery and HTML image maps

Most of us don't even use image maps anymore. But occasionally, mostly when
freelancing, you will need to work with the pages that were created in mid 90's
and image maps where pop stars in that era. Anyway to refresh your memory
here is how HTML image map looks like:
<img src="bigImage.gif" usemap="#parts" />

<map name="parts">
<area shape="rect" coords="20,6,200,60" href="http://www.boo.uz
">
<area shape="circle" coords="100,200,50" href="http://www.googl
e.com">
</map>
To access HTML image map area attributes and properties use something like
this:
$('area').click(function() {
var url = $(this).attr('href');
var coords = $(this).attr('coords').split(',');
// Your code here
// To prevent default action

return false;
});
This is all that I have on jQuery and image maps.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , HT M L, J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, S EL EC T O R S , T I P
T H UR S D A Y, J A NUA R Y 8 , 2 0 0 9
How to select innermost element with jQuery

Today I was working on new category browser UI for the project I am working. I
had to select the innermost element and append some more content into it.
Basically, I had an HTML like this:
<div>Outermost element
<div>Some Text
<div>Evenmore text
<div>Who cares anymore?
<div>Innermost Element</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
So I needed to select the innermost div and append another div to it. There is no
jQuery selector but you can use selectors that exist to achieve this goal. The
innermost element would be the last div with the only-child.
$('div:only-child:last');
// Change background color to gray

$('div:only-child:last').css('background-color',"#ccc");
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, S ELEC T O R S, T I P
W ED NES D A Y, J A N UA R Y 7 , 2 0 0 9
Object-Oriented JavaScript, how to achieve

private properties/fields
The very basic of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is private fields and public
methods (not considering features like polymorphism, inheritance, etc). So how
to achieve this very basic of OOP in JavaScript. It turns out to be easy. Here is
how to have private fields in your custom JavaScript functions/classes and using
methods of your function/class to amend it.
function User() {
var name = '';
return {
name = newName;
},
return name;
}
}
}
var user = User();
user.setName("My Name");
user.getName(); // My Name
The User() class we just created could be considered a bean in Java. Using this
template you can have as many private fields and public methods as you want.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , O O P , R EFER ENC E, T I P
T U ES D A Y, J A NU A R Y 6 , 2 0 0 9
How jQuery's plugin/extension system works
Recently I was reading about extending jQuery's functionality and plugin system.
I wrote two articles on extending jQuery functionality with your own custom
functions. To extend you write $.fn.myFunction and then your function. It was
interesting what $.fn is, so I look through the jQuery code and on line 33 found:
jQuery.fn = jQuery.prototype = {
So jQuery's fn is just a synonym for its prototype. I know this is not a discovery
of the century but it gives you some understanding of how jQuery's plug-in
system works and its insights.
L A B ELS : I NS I G HT S , JQ UER Y, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E
M O ND A Y, J A NU A R Y 5 , 2 0 0 9
Improving jQuery code performance

Following jQuery performance related articles here is another tip to boost your
jQuery code performance. You should use ID selections whenever you can.
Because jQuery uses browser's native getElementById() function which is
much faster.
Now back to JavaScript code performance testing. I have an unordered list with
1000 items. First test will have list items with class attributes and the second
list will have id attributes set to its items.
console.time('test');
for (i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
$('.'+i);
}
console.timeEnd('test');
// ~8204ms
for (i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
$('#'+i);
}
// ~32ms
As you can see selecting with element's #id is much faster. In our case 256
times (8204/32).
L A B ELS : JQ UER Y, P ER FO R M A NCE, S ELEC T O R S , T I P
T U ES D A Y, D EC EM B ER 3 0 , 2 0 0 8
How to disable/enable an element with jQuery

Sometimes you need to disable or enable some elements in your document and
jQuery makes this task easy. All you have to do is to set disabled attribute to
"disabled ".
Exam ple:
// To disable
$('.someElement').attr('disabled', 'disabled');
In order to enable any disabled element you need to set the disabled attribute
to empty string or remove it entirely like in the code below.
// To enable
$('.someElement').removeAttr('disabled');
// OR you can set attr to ""

$('.someElement').attr('disabled', '');
And that’s basically how to disable and enable HTML / DOM elements on your
website using jQuery. You can see this code in action in real life example of
Disabling submit button on form submission post.
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , B EG I NNER , HO W T O , J Q UER Y, M A NI P ULA T I O N, R EFER ENC E, T I P
M O ND A Y, D EC E M B ER 2 9 , 2 0 0 8
Caching in jQuery
What is great about jQuery is its simplicity in selecting elements. We all use it
here and there, basically everywhere. This simplicity comes with its drawbacks.
jQuery traverses through all elements every time we use selectors. So to boost
up your jQuery application you should always cache your selections to some
variable (if you find yourself using the same selection more than once). In case
you are not selecting an element more than once you should not cache your
selection by assigning it to some variable.
Here is an exam ple:
var cached = $('.someElement');

cached.addClass('cached-element');
Here are the perform ance tests:
for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
$('.the').text(i + ' ');
}
// ~260ms
console.time('test2');
var the = $('.the');
for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
the.text(i + ' ');
}
console.timeEnd('test2');
// ~30ms
As you can see caching increased performance by nearly 10 times.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P ER FO R M A NC E, S EL EC T O R S , T I P
M O ND A Y, D EC E M B ER 2 9 , 2 0 0 8
How to check if checkbox is checked using

jQuery
Note: If you are new to jQuery , you might find our short jQuery
beginner tuto rials useful.
While working on my previous project I needed a way to check if the certain

checkbox is checked or not. jQuery is a great library but I had a hard time
identifying if any particular checkbox was checked. So here is the way to do just
that.
All you need to do is to check checked attribute of checkbox HTML tag:
// First way
$('#checkBox').attr('checked');
// Second way
$('#edit-checkbox-id').is(':checked');
// Third way for jQuery 1.2

$("input[@type=checkbox][@checked]").each(
function() {
// Insert code here
}
);
// Third way == UPDATE jQuery 1.3
$("input[type=checkbox][checked]").each(
function() {
// Insert code here
}
);
// In his comment Andy mentions that the 3rd method

// does not work in Firefox 3.5.2 & jQuery 1.3.2
First two methods return true or false . True if that particular checkbox was
checked or false if it is not checked. The third method iterates though all
checkboxes with checked attribute defined and performs some action.
See the latest jQuery tips. They are sho rt, very sho rt!
Want to learn how to check if jQuery.js is loaded into the current document?
Also learn how to work with jQuery 1.3's new Event object.
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , B EG I NNER , HO W T O , HT M L , J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T I P
FRI DAY, DECEM B ER 26, 2008
How to test JavaScript code performance

Sometimes after all day long coding your code becomes not so effective and
your code (usually interface related) becomes slow. You have done so many
changes and don't exactly know what slowing it down. In cases like this (and of
course, plenty other cases) you can test your JavaScript code performance.
First of all, you need Firefox browser and Firebug web developers life saver
plugin. I can not think of my web programming work without it.
Anyway, Firebug makes available console variable to your JavaScript page.

Console can be used for logging or printing out debugging information to the
Firebug console. Console also has one handy method for tracking time in
milliseconds.
console.time('timerName');
// Your javascript code to test here
console.timeEnd('timerName');
You can use this script to test your JavaScript code. timerName in the code can
be any name for your timer. Don't forget to end your timer using the same name
for timeEnd() .
L A B ELS : FI R EB UG , HO W T O , JA V A S C R I P T , P ER FO R M A NC E, R EFER ENC E, T ES T , T I P
T H UR S D A Y, D EC EM B ER 2 5 , 2 0 0 8
Everything has characteristics of an Array in

JavaScript
The title maybe a little misleading. So don’t confuse Arrays with Object in
JavaScript! They have common and non-common methods. You can use jQuery
built-in method to check if any given variable is an array ($.isArray(var) ).
I came across this feature of JavaScript recently and thought I would share it with
you. So every object I tried to use had capabilities of array. I could refer to
object/class members and properties using array syntax. For example:
var obj = new Number();

obj.name = "My Name";
alert(obj["name"]);
Similarly with your own classes:
function myFunk(){
this.name = "My Name";
}
var obj = new myFunk();

obj.newProperty = "Dynamicly Created";
obj.newMethod = function(){ return "Hello"; }
alert( obj["newMethod"]() );
Pay attention to dynamically created properties and methods. Pretty awesome :)
TIP:
In case you want your methods to be available to all class instance use
prototype .
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J A V A S CR I P T , T I P
T U ES D A Y, D EC EM B ER 2 3 , 2 0 0 8
What a heck is a (function ($){ ... })(jQuery)

Recently I wrote two articles on how to extend jQuery using its plug in system
and a shorthand for that. If you look into them closely they are actually the same
thing. The only difference being that the code in first one is wrapped in this
anonymous JavaScript function:
(function ($) {
// code goes here
})(jQuery)
Little research shows that this allows the use of $ within this function without
conflicting with other JavaScript libraries who are using it. Basically, since we are
setting $ as a parameter, $ will overwrite any globally defined
variables/references of $ in that particular anonymous function.
// Assume "$" is a prototype reference

(function ($) {
// Here "$" is a jQuery reference
})(jQuery)
So basically it’s an anonymous function that lets jQuery play nicely with other
javascript libraries that might have $ variable/function. Also if you notice, all
jQuery plugins code is wrapped in this anonymous function.
NOTE:
The following two javascript codes are equivalent:
// Code 1:
(function ($) {
// Javascript code
})(jQuery)
// Code 2:
var myFunction = function ($) {
// Javascript code
};
myFuntion(jQuery);
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E, T I P
M O ND A Y, D EC E M B ER 2 2 , 2 0 0 8
How to add your own custom functions to jQuery

Recently I wrote a template on how to extend jQuery and how to create your own
functions. Since then I came across even smaller code snippet on how to add
your own custom functions, in other words how to create plugins for jQuery. So
without further ado:
$.fn.myFunction = function() {
return $(this).addClass('changed');
}
And now, use it like this:
$('.changePlease').myFunction();
And that is all there is :)
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E, T I P
M O ND A Y, D EC E M B ER 2 2 , 2 0 0 8
Let Google host your jQuery library

Google hosts several JavaScript libraries such as Prototype, script.aculo.us,
MooTools, Dojo, etc. It also hosts jQuery, as well as jQuery UI. The files are
already minimized, gzipped and if your visitors have already visited some site
that loaded jQuery from Google Code then it already be on user's machine. So
there is nothing to load.
UPDATE: Y ou can also use jQuery hosted by Microsoft CDN

servers.
Anyway, so here is 2 ways of loading jQuery from Google Code:
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi">
</script>
google.load("jquery", "1.2.6");
google.setOnLoadCallback(function() {
// Your code goes here.
});
</script>
I prefere loading it stright from the Google like this:
<script
src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min
.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>
Other links to jQuery files on Google:
http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.3/jquery.min.js
Loading jQuery UI from Google CDN servers

Google CDN servers also host jQuery UI files. So if you are using jQuery UI you
can also load them using these links and code:
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi">
</script>
google.load("jquery", "1.3.2");
google.load("jqueryui", "1.7.2");
google.setOnLoadCallback(function() {
// Your code goes here.
});
</script>

<script
src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-u
i.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>
Currently Google hosts these versions of jQuery UI library:
1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.6.0, 1.7.0, 1.7.1, 1.7.2, 1.7.3, 1.8.0, 1.8.1,

1.8.2, 1.8.4
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, L I NK , P ER FO R M A N C E, R EFER ENC E, T I P
M O ND A Y, D EC E M B ER 1 5 , 2 0 0 8
How to create a jQuery plugin, extending jQuery

the easy way
I have read a great book on jQuery Learning JQuery . I skimmed through the
chapter on extending jQuery and creating its plugins. It is quite easy. All you
have to do is to use this template:
(function($){
$.fn.extend({
myFunk: function() {
// You must return jQuery object
return $();
},
myPunk: function() {
return this.addClass('punked')
.bind('click', function(){
alert('You were punked!');
});
}
});
})(jQuery);
Then you can use your defined functions like this:
$('.select').myFunk();
$('.select').myPunk();
jQuery uses method chaining pattern so you need to return jQuery object from
your newly created methods.
L A B ELS : HO W T O , J Q UER Y, P L UG I N, R EFER ENC E, T I P
S UN D A Y, D EC EM B ER 1 4 , 2 0 0 8
How to bind events to AJAX loaded elements

We all use jQuery's AJAX helpers like $.get() , $.post() and $.load() . We
also all use jQuery's event bindings. When you use them both, problems such as
your event bindings like click() are not bided to your new AJAX loaded
elements. To solve this problem you need to bind events to your newly loaded
elements.
NOTE:
Make sure you don't bind the same event to the elements with this event already
bound.
TIP:
You should somehow separate newly created elements and then bind event in
callback of an AJAX function.
Regarding the tip above. Here are two ways of separating AJAX loaded content:
1. You can load into some specific container <div id="ajax-loaded">

</div> and then apply your events to the elements inside this container
(Ex: $('#ajax-loaded .my-button').click(...) ).
2. Add some class to your elements that are loaded on the server side.
You might also be interested in:
Cross domain AJAX querying

AJAX update content every X seconds
Display loading GIF image while loading through AJAX
Update: A dded a demo page that show s how to bind events to
A JA X lo aded elements here.
L A B ELS : A JA X , EV ENT S , HO W T O , JQ UER Y, T I P , W O R K A R O UND
S A T UR D A Y, D EC EM B ER 1 3 , 2 0 0 8
How many elements were selected by jQuery

Recently I needed to find out how many elements were selected by jQuery.
jQuery selector returns an array of elements jQuery object that has .length
attribute. So the easiest way is to get the length of returned jQuery object. The
size of that object will be equal to the number of selected elements.
$('.someClass').length;
// Assume you have 4 .class elements

$('.class').length;
// would return 4
Also, you can use built in jQuery helper function called .size() . It returns the
same value as .length property but it is slightly slower, however the difference
is insanely small. So you can use .length or .size() depending on your
choice.
// Example usage for .size()

$('.someClass').size();
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , B EG I NNER , HO W T O , I NSI G HT S , J Q UER Y, R EFER ENC E,
S EL ECT O R S , T I P
Access to restricted URI denied" code: "1012

I was working on the interface for our catalogue/directory structure. We use great
JavaScript library jQuery as our JS framework. While working on page AJAX
requests to get child categories I came up to this error message / problem:
Access to restricted URI denied" code: "1012

xhr.open(type, s.url, s.async);
(This error was produced in Firebug, plug-in for Firefox)
The error occurs when my application tries to do an AJAX request call to local
resource. In other words, 'Access to restricted URI denied" code: "1012' error
occurs when javascript tries to load a file from my hard drive. The file type let it
be CSS, HTML, javascript does not matter.
Reason:
1. The reason for the error is Firefox's security model that does not allow
retrieving/accessing localhost resources.
2. Also Firefox does not allow accessing resources from other domains
(NOTE: www.example.com and example.com are considered two different
domains as well).
Solution:
1. So, to solve this problem you need to deploy your files to your web server
or run one locally. You can run XAMPP or lightweight Denwer (similar to
XAMPP, but it is in Russian).
2. To access resources from other domains you can put a simple proxy
script, as it is described in this “Cross domain AJAX scripting” post.
L A B ELS : A JA X , ER R O R , FI R EB UG , JA V A S C R I P T , R EFER ENC E, W O R K A R O UND
S A T UR D A Y, N O V EM B ER 1 , 2 0 0 8
Set HTML tag’s / element’s attribute
In our previous post about “How to get an element’s / tag’s attribute” I described
how to get element’s attribute. In this post I would like to show you how to set
any HTML tag’s or element’s attributes. Don’t forget, jQuery can set any
attributes like id, class, style, name, title, etc.
Setting element’s attribute example:
// This code add title to all page links

$("a").attr("title", "This is a link");
// Set table cell's collspan attribute

$("td.myDoubleCell").attr("colspan", 2);
NOTE:
You are not limited to W3 Consortium defined set of HTML attributes. So you
can also set your own attributes with their own values.
Here is an example:
//This code adds myAttr attribute with the value of 10

$("#container").attr("myAttr", "10");
You can use .attr("myAttr") to get the set attribute value. Cool ha?!
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , B EG I NNER , HO W T O , J Q UER Y, M A NI P ULA T I O N
Getting HTML tag attribute of an element using

jQuery
Using jQuery you can get any attribute (ex: id, class , style , name , title , etc.)
of any HTML tag (ex: <div> , <span> , <p> , etc.) using the
.attr("attributeName") function. This method return a string of the element’s
attribute.
Example:
Consider we have the following HTML tags on our page with corresponding
attributes:
<div class="myContainer" id="wrapper">

Some content
<a id="siteLink" title="Google" href="">link</a>
</div>
And to get container's id attribute and the link's title attributes, we would use
the following jQuery code:
// Get the ID of the selected div

var divID = $("div.myContainer").attr("id");
// Get a title attribute of a link

var linkTitle = $("#siteLink").attr("title");
Here, divID would be equal to wrapper and linkTitle would be equal to

Google .
NOTE:
If your jQuery selection returns more than once element, .attr() function would
return only the first element’s attribute.
L A B ELS : A T T R I B UT ES , HO W T O , JQ UER Y
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20/01/2011 JQuery HowTo

FRI DAY, OC TO B ER 15, 2010

Check if a language file is loaded for jQuery

So to check if particular language file is loaded all we need to do is to check if

// Better way to check if the lang file is loaded

JavaScript to detect iPad visitors

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKi

1. Redirect iPad visitors

jQuery Globalization plugin — jquery.glob.js

jQuery Project officially supports jQuery Globalization plugin.

jQuery Globalization plugin is licensed under the same non-restrictive terms as

JavaScript library alternative to globalization plugin would be nice.

To be honest, JavaScript and jQuery community had a lack of localization

Non minified versions

jQuery UI modules can be downloaded seperately

jQuery UI CSS files (matches original directory names)

FRI DAY, S EP TEM B ER 24, 2010

iPhone / iPod detection using jQuery &

Javascript code to detect iPhone and iPod browsers

Redirecting iPhone & iPod users

// Redirect iPhone/iPod visitors

Redirect iPhone users using PHP

// Redirect iPhone/iPod visitors

User agent strings for your reference:

User Agent String for iPod Touch

Coupure de page insérée par AutoPager. Page ( 2 ).

jQuery mobile source code

Meanwhile you can read all jQuery mobile facts here.

jQuery & Cookies (get/set/delete & a plugin)

Here are javascript functions by Peter-Paul Koch to getCookie() , setCookie()

// Create/write a cookie and store it for 1 day

Here is how to use jQuery Cookie plugin in your code:

// Creating cookie with all availabl options

// Set multiple cookies

Here are some facts that I found:

1. jQuery Mobile will be in core, NOT as a separate distribution like

jQuery.live() – event binding to AJAX loaded

So, how does .live() function works?

// Example usage of jQuery().live() function

// As of jQuery 1.4.1 .live() can accept

$('.mySelector').live('click', {myVar: 'myVal'}, function(event){

jQuery.live() function performance

// Using context for better performance

Unbinding events attached using .live() function

// Remove myFunk() from click event

How to check loaded jQuery UI version?

Checking currently loaded jQuery UI version on the page:

// Returns jQuery UI version (ex: 1.8.2 ) or undefined

You would most probably use it in the if statement:

You can also check if jQuery UI is loaded or not:

// Checking if jQuery UI is loaded or not

Coupure de page insérée par AutoPager. Page ( 3 ).

jQuery YouTube plugin demo

// Getting video screenshot by YouTube video ID

// Returns video thumbnail by YouTube video URL

See the plugin in actio n on jQuery Y ouTube demo page.

I hope you will find the plugin useful.

jQuery Twitter plugin update

// Defaults to 5 latest posts

// Get latest 13 posts

Update: Pushed the project to GitHub.

jQuery code / syntax guidelines

// some prefere it like this

1. Use tabs to indent your code