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jQuery Tools 1.2.0 Release Notes

introducing

jQuery TOOLS FORM

The 20 year wait is over. Now you can build your forms with HTML5 and make them look and behave like you want. This completely new set of tools weighs only 5.98 Kb and you can load it from a free content delivery network.

HTML5 Form validation

jQuery Tools brings form validation to the level that it should have been 20 years ago. It's compact, fast and builds upon the best parts of HTML5 and Web Forms 2.0 standards. Use the new HTML5 inputs or create your own. Together with jQuery these complex standards can be turned into something purely amazing.

HTML5 date input for humans

Now you can use HTML5 date inputs in all browsers. Use CSS to make skins that look and behave like you want. Example skins are provided. Opera will render date input even if JavaScript is disabled.

HTML5 range input for us all

Range inputs simply make your forms easier to use. Range input is just like any other form field that can be scripted and submitted. Opera and Safari will render range input even if JavaScript is disabled.

contact information

server information

This imaginary form is constructed with 100% HTML5 standard. No hacks or tweaks. The form works on all major browsers even in IE6. What's really amazing is that the form can have dateinputs and ranges even when JavaScript is disabled! All this with kB!
Here are all the input fields and scripting for the demo. You have a sane subset of the HTML5 and Web Forms 2.0 standards available. Now these complex but useful standards can be used by humans.
This form uses CSS3 features such as attribute selectors, rounded borders, RGBA coloring and box shadows. These make web developers' life much, much easier. Together with FORM Tools and HTML5 we can finally make well behaving and good looking forms with ease.
At the time of writing Opera has the best native support for HTML5. Here is Opera with JavaScript disabled! The browser displays it's native date and range input controls. Browsers that does not natively support these special inputs will show show a normal text field so that the form is editable in all situations.
Now listen. Internet Explorer has fairly good JavaScript support so it's possible to make cross-browser libraries like jQuery Tools; however, IE has many issues with CSS and HTML. If you want somewhat similar look for IE
  1. you need quite precisely 300% more development time and money for dirty hacks and redundant images
  2. your application becomes harder to maintain so you also need 300% more time and money in the future
  3. all this 300% for what? your site will feel like IE6 on all browsers!

Let me put this another way. There is absolutely no good reason to develop an identical look for IE6. Period. Respect the standards and let unstandard browsers do what they can. Luckily you don't have to compromise with the funtionality. It's the looks that IE doesn't care about. I hope IE9 is better.

introducing

jQuery TOOLS 1.2.0

A typical software project grows in time. Not jQuery Tools. It gets smaller! Now the UI tools are just 4.45 Kb and the sources are hosted on Github.

Smaller and smaller

In JavaScript, file size is a very important quality measure. The Web is all about speed. The combined size of Tabs, Tooltips, Overlay and Scrollable is now only 4.45 Kb when minified and gzipped. New tools are 20% smaller making them faster and easier to understand. The file size can be reduced by writing good code but also by using a proper JavaScript minifier. At the time of writing Google's Closure Compiler is being used to generate the smallest file sizes possible for jQuery Tools 1.2.0.

A completely new Scrollable

The new Scrollable gives you complete freedom in "page" design. You can choose to have a variable amount of items on a single page with variable width. The circular feature is now a core feature and it is no longer in beta. Infinite loops are now rock solid and you can even add new items in a circular scrollable without breaking it. You can navigate between pages with the browser's back button and the browser history also works for dynamically added items. All this in a ridiculously small 0.98 Kb file size. The smallest scrollable on the web is now 50% smaller!

Toolbox. A set of small essentials.

jQuery Tools is a collection of the most important UI components for the Web. Version 1.2.0 tightens this criteria. Flashembed and Expose are no longer main tools. They are now part of a Toolbox which is a collection of small utilities that offer supporting features for the main tools. For example, history allows both tabs and scrollables to use the browser's back button.

Each tool in the Toolbox can also work in a standalone fashion and there are no complex dependencies. Remember that this library is all about "Tools not Policy".

Smoother Tooltips

Tooltip has undergone a significant rewrite. Just like scrollable this tool is now smaller and simpler but definitely makes no compromises on its behaviour. On the contrary, this version has a dedicated tooltip for each trigger making it possible to have a separate animation for each. The tooltip element itself is automatically generated if not explicitly defined so you can simply write $(".mytrigger").tooltip(); and you are in business.

New, even more compact Flashembed

Another tool with significant size reduction. The new Flashembed has 24% less source code resulting in a 1.10 Kb file size when minified and gzipped. This crazy size is one third of the closest competition. Of course the source code is easier to understand and contains no hacks. As do all Tools in the library it passes Douglas Crockford's JavaScript verifier.

jQuery best practices

Now you can use bind method to assign event listeners and use the data method to access the programming API. Both are well known practices in the jQuery community. You can still assign event listeners from the Tools programming API. However the api configuration variable has been deprecated.

jQuery Tools has been tested with jQuery versions 1.3.2 and 1.4.2.

Github

Two GitHub repositories have been created: jQuery Tools and the Website. Now it's easier to contribute.

If you want to join the project please fork it and push your changes to the Fork Queue. Please send your ideas by email through Github. I'm more than happy to discuss anything about them before any coding starts.

Thanks Banksy

NO COPYRIGHTS OR LICENSES. DO WHAT YOU LIKE.

This is the new jQuery Tools license.

Copyrights and patents are evil. They block the natural progress of development. We all know it: if people start sharing instead of owning the world would be a better place. Today money is king. This results in closed systems and poor quality and in many cases people are even seriously exploited. For businessmen nothing is enough.

New versioning policy

Previously each individual tool had its own version number. Now there is only one version number: the version of the jQuery Tools. Every tool belong to a single jQuery Tools version. Simple.