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Stack OverflowYour Favorite jQuery Controls & Plugins
[+68] [23] Tyler
[2009-02-11 19:58:12]
[ jquery jquery-ui jquery-plugins ]
[ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/538498/your-favorite-jquery-controls-plugins ] [DELETED]

I'm still getting into JQuery. One of the most attractive elements is the plethora of available plug-ins and controls!

Of late, I've been a big fan of the Accordion [1]. When styled and combined with some of the better animations it looks great. I've also just been introduced to the coda-slider [2], which also does an great job.

Help me learn! List your favorite JQuery controls and plug-ins!

(1) Here we go again, another jQuery fan. - Luca Matteis
I like the this, but you may get slammed for not making this a community wiki. It's subjective and not a real question - Micah
(7) Did you seriously mark this as offensive because it is about jQuery? One thing is being a fan of a superb product, but blind hatred of it for no reason whatsoever is much worse. - Paolo Bergantino
Offensive? Come on! - Andrew Rollings
Shouldn't this be community wiki? - Kezzer
tyler, edit your question and check the community wiki option. - Gordon Bell
One of the most powerful things about jQuery is its extensibility; and there are tons of them to choose from. I think it's valid to ask which are the most useful. Does need to be community wiki though. - Adam Lassek
@Paolo: no of course not. - Luca Matteis
@Luca: Alright, sorry if I seemed to jump at you, just really hate people misusing the offensive link. - Paolo Bergantino
@Paolo - Do you hate the people that misuse it or the misuse it's self? - Micah
This is now marked community wiki. Thanks for the feedback. I take it all things that are subjective are supposed to be marked as community wiki? - Tyler
That is correct. Otherwise it looks like you're just trying to make some fast rep. - Adam Lassek
@Micah: Eh. Both? :) - Paolo Bergantino
[+28] [2009-02-14 02:13:36] Ryan McGeary

Here are two plugins that I frequently use (I'm biased because I wrote them).

  • Timeago [1]: Timeago is a jQuery plugin that makes it easy to support automatically updating fuzzy timestamps (e.g. "4 minutes ago" or "about 1 day ago").
  • Flexselect [2]: Flexselect is a jQuery plugin that turns select boxes into flex-matching incremental-finding controls. Think of it as Quicksilver squished into a select box.

Here are some other's that I really like and use quite frequently:

  • Facebox [3]: Facebox is a jQuery-based, Facebook-style lightbox which can display images, divs, or entire remote pages. It's simple to use and easy on the eyes.
  • jGrowl [4]: jGrowl is a jQuery plugin that raises unobtrusive messages within the browser, similar to the way that OS X's Growl Framework works.
  • Placeholder [5]: A jQuery plugin which enables HTML5 placeholder behavior for browsers that aren’t trying hard enough yet.
  • Live Query [6]: Live Query utilizes the power of jQuery selectors by binding events or firing callbacks for matched elements auto-magically, even after the page has been loaded and the DOM updated.
  • Form [7]: The jQuery Form Plugin allows you to easily and unobtrusively upgrade HTML forms to use AJAX.
[1] http://timeago.yarp.com/
[2] http://rmm5t.github.com/jquery-flexselect/
[3] https://github.com/defunkt/facebox
[4] http://stanlemon.net/projects/jgrowl.html
[5] https://github.com/mathiasbynens/Placeholder-jQuery-Plugin
[6] http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/livequery
[7] http://malsup.com/jquery/form/

(2) Timeago is awesome! Started writing you an e-mail a while back to suggest changing the timeout function to depend on how fresh the timestamp is (e.g. don't bother updating every minute if the timestamp is "10 days ago"), but figured it probably would cost more in extra computation time than it would save in being executed less. Anyway - yeah - Timeago is great! - Dominic Rodger
(2) Flex select is awesome! - pchap10k
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[+16] [2009-02-11 20:17:06] Jere.Jones

jqGrid [1] is simply the best and most flexible grid I have seen. It has, without a doubt, made my current project much easier. Ajax friendly, extendable, under active development. I can't find anything else that comes close.

[1] http://www.trirand.com/blog/

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[+14] [2009-02-11 20:02:22] bendewey

Hands down the Dialog [1] control for me. I've always hated popups and I hardly use them anymore.

[1] http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Dialog

easy to use and effective. - pomarc
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[+14] [2009-02-11 20:05:59] Perpetualcoder

I love jGrowl [1]. It really exemplifies unobtrusive JS for me :)

[1] http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jGrowl

Oh that's awesome! I've been looking using jQuery for a while but missed this one. thanks! - slothbear
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[+14] [2009-02-11 20:12:27] Adam Lassek

The Masked Input plugin [1] is one of my favorites. Allows you to easily add guidelines for people to input things, and client-side validation to prevent them from typing the wrong characters. It creates a formatted layout and fills it in as they type which is really nice.

screenshot

[1] http://digitalbush.com/projects/masked-input-plugin/

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[+11] [2009-02-11 20:05:27] tvanfosson

I really like the Autocomplete [1] plugin. I'm using it to replace dropdowns with lots of potential options and to provide a mechanism to prevent duplicate data insertion.

[1] http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-autocomplete/

I absolutely love this plugin. Does a great job. - sestocker
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[+10] [2009-02-11 20:13:30] Gordon Bell

TableSorter

http://tablesorter.com/docs/


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[+7] [2009-02-14 03:29:02] Parrots

I use DatePicker [1] on all my input fields that should contain dates. It looks very sharp. I did modify it a bit [2] to fix a bug with reading back from the input. Beyond that it works very well.

Flot [3] is another plugin I've taken to using more (and I think SO uses it too on the user rep page). It's a graphing plugin that supports all kinds of data sets, very useful for showing statistics visually.

Levitip [4] is useful for hover boxes, I use it a lot within forms to give more details about a field.

Lasty Facebox [5] replaces any need for pop-up windows anymore.

[1] http://eyecon.ro/datepicker/
[2] http://forgottenexpanse.com/blog/2008/12/07/a-better-jquery-date-picker
[3] http://code.google.com/p/flot/
[4] http://plugins.jquery.com/project/levitip
[5] https://github.com/defunkt/facebox

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[+6] [2009-02-14 03:15:20] Paolo Bergantino

I am a big fan of BeautyTips [1]

[1] http://www.lullabot.com/articles/beautytips-09-release

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[+5] [2009-02-11 20:14:08] Josh Mein

Check out asmselect [1]! It makes it easier for users to select multiple items and know what was already selected and remove them if desired

If you are really interested in finding some more jquery plugins check this [2] out.

[1] http://plugins.jquery.com/project/asmselect
[2] http://devsnippets.com/reviews/using-jquery-to-style-design-elements-20-impressive-plugins.html

(5) i prefer this way .... scotthorlbeck.com/code/tochecklist - Bruce Aldridge
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[+5] [2009-05-01 11:46:51] pomarc

I am using flot [1], a charting and plotting library. I'm using it in many projects now and it's fast, stable and the produced charts are quite good looking.

I have embedded cluetip [2] in a .NET web control and I am using extensively on many projects.

[1] http://code.google.com/p/flot/
[2] http://plugins.learningjquery.com/cluetip/

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[+4] [2009-02-11 20:18:04] Chris Ballance

Here is a good collection of jQuery plugins [1]

[1] http://speckyboy.com/2008/07/21/20-amazing-jquery-plugins-and-65-excellent-jquery-resources/

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[+4] [2009-02-12 05:31:29] Chatu

This Context Menu [1] plugin is a must have. It works great.

[1] http://abeautifulsite.net/blog/2008/09/jquery-context-menu-plugin/

-1: The link no longer works. - Jim G.
+1 Link works fine =D - elwyn
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[+3] [2011-12-14 15:25:40] SpaceBeers

ImageMapster is a fantastic plugin that lets you use highlight image maps with CSS or alternate images.

http://www.outsharked.com/imagemapster/


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[+2] [2009-02-19 17:20:13] calebt

hoverIntent [1]. It's basically a replacement for mouseover/mouseout. It waits until your mouse slows down before it fires the events so you don't accidentally fire off ajax calls inside of a mouseover.

I made a blog post [2] about how I'm using it.

[1] http://cherne.net/brian/resources/jquery.hoverIntent.html
[2] http://rndnext.blogspot.com/2009/02/jquery-live-and-plugins.html

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[+2] [2009-07-31 01:43:34] jpartogi

I really like the jQuery tools from flowplayer [1]. The default look and feel is quite nice.

[1] http://flowplayer.org/tools/

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[+2] [2011-10-14 19:00:39] user996022

jRumble [1] is a jQuery plugin that rumbles, vibrates, shakes, and rotates any element you choose. It's great to use as a hover effect or a way to direct attention to an element. You can control the X, Y, and rotation range, the speed, and event trigger for the rumble.

[1] http://jackrugile.com/jrumble/

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[+1] [2009-02-14 03:11:00] Jeffrey Meyer

Flexigrid [1] is a terrific grid plugin.

[1] http://code.google.com/p/flexigrid/

Here is the link to the Flexigrid homepage + samples - dvb
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[+1] [2009-02-15 21:58:28] Bruce Aldridge

uiToaster [1] is pretty cool, and the whole jqueryUI suite

[1] http://haineault.com/media/examples/jquery-ui-toaster/demo/

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[+1] [2009-07-31 02:05:25] ScottE

I like the jquery validation plugin [1].

[1] http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/

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[0] [2011-09-29 04:34:32] daviesgeek

Fancybox [1] is a lightbox alternative.

From their website:

  • Can display images, HTML elements, SWF movies, Iframes and also Ajax requests
  • Customizable through settings and CSS
  • Groups related items and adds navigation.
  • If the mouse wheel plugin is included in the page then FancyBox will respond to mouse wheel events as well
  • Support fancy transitions by using easing plugin
  • Adds a nice drop shadow under the zoomed item
[1] http://fancybox.net/

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[0] [2012-01-01 18:46:36] Vad

I really like Flow Slider [1], it like one of those good old Flash thumbnail slider effects.

[1] http://www.flowslider.com

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[0] [2012-03-01 06:12:20] john0514

Full Disclosure, I'm about to recommend a plug-in I developed.

Basic jQuery Slider [1]

I was building bespoke sliders from scratch for each individual project and decided to build a simple plugin with all the basic functionality (slide, fade, controls, markers, keyboard navigation, etc) that I could deploy in every build. My goal was to have a plugin that is basic enough that I can customise and skin it easily for every new project, but have a robust enough codebase that I could be confident in it working straight away with minimal configuration.

[1] http://basic-slider.com

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