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"As someone who uses jQuery on a regular basis, it was surprising to discover how much of the library I'm not using. This book is indispensable for anyone who is serious about using jQuery for non-trivial applications."-- Raffaele Cecco, longtime developer of video games, including Cybernoid, Exolon, and Stormlord jQuery is the "write less, do more" JavaScript library. Its powerful features and ease of use have made it the most popular client-side JavaScript framework for the Web. Ideal for JavaScript developers at all skill levels, this book is jQuery's trusty companion: the definitive "read less, learn more" guide to the library. jQuery Pocket Reference explains everything you need to know about jQuery, completely and comprehensively. You'll learn how to: Select and manipulate document elements Alter document structure Handle and trigger events Create visual effects and animations Script HTTP with Ajax utilities Use jQuery's selectors and selection methods, utilities, plugins and more The 25-page quick reference summarizes the library, listing all jQuery methods and functions, with signatures and descriptions.… (more)
User reviews
First, had Amazon or the publisher indicated that this was included as a chapter in Flanagan's recently published JavaScript: The Definitive Guide: Activate Your Web Pages, I wouldn't have bought it—but I downloaded both at the same time and didn't find
That said, this is a fine piece of work. Like many developers, I started using a JavaScript library for a particular project and settled on jQuery because it provided the features I needed at the time. I came to understand its value and used in increasingly, but always with a familiarity constrained by the requirements of my initial use. My skills grew as I used it, but slowly.
So, I really welcomed and valued the first 2/3 (or so) of Flanagan's book (or chapter), which is a narrative description of the library's features, with examples and detailed explanations of what's going on behind the scenes. Writing that sort of narrative about a programming language is hard, and Flanagan's only peer for that, in my opinion, is Friedl of Mastering Regular Expressions (also an O'Reilly book), and he succeeded here well enough that a person can actually read the whole thing with considerable understanding, thereby gaining a better overview of the library than can be had by searching out features when we bump up against something we don't know how to do. The last 1/3 of the book is a reference section: concise, simple, and well-organized, just what you need when you forget a particular syntax.
The book was written for jQuery version 1.4 and the current version is 1.6.1 (as of today), and quite a bit has been added to jQuery. I knew that before I bought the book and decided the reference retained enough value to be worthwhile even though the version had been superseded. You should bear that in mind, though.