JQuery 1.4 animation techniques beginner's guide : quickly master all of jquery's animation methods and build a toolkit of ready-to-use animations using jQuery 1.4

344 Pages·2011·7.62 MB·English

jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques
Beginner's Guide
Quickly master all of jQuery's animation methods and build
a toolkit of ready-to-use animations using jQuery 1.4
Dan Wellman
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques
Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing
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First published: March 2011
Production Reference: 1140311
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849513-30-2
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Filippo ([email protected])
Credits
Author Editorial Team Leader
Dan Wellman Akshara Aware
Reviewers Project Team Leader
Shaiful Islam Priya Mukherji
Ben Nadel
Cyril Pierron Project Coordinator
Sneha Harkut
Acquisition Editor
Sarah Cullington Proofreader
Aaron Nash
Development Editor
Roger D'souza Production Coordinator
Melwyn D'sa
Technical Editor
Conrad Sardinha Cover Work
Melwyn D'sa
Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Foreword
Since the first jQuery homepage in 2006, an interactive example introduced visitors to jQuery
with a single line of code, and a button to run that code. When clicked, it added a class to a
hidden paragraph, and animated that paragraph to become visible.
Today, in late 2010, the API documentation has 15 methods listed in the Effects category.
These provide built-in animations for fading and sliding, as well as various ways to create
custom animations. When combined with color and class animations and custom easings
that jQuery UI provides, there are even more ways to create animations.
A good rule of thumb for using animations is to use slides when showing elements within
the pageflow, and fades for overlays, like a tooltip. But that's just a rule of thumb, and with
all the tools available there's a lot more opportunity to improve interactions, as well as
messing them up.
With that in mind, a full book on animations starts to make a lot of sense. It makes even
more sense when also taking into account upcoming technologies which aren't bound to
jQuery directly, like CSS3 animations or animated canvas drawings.
As a tech reviewer I've worked with Dan on his jQuery UI 1.6 and jQuery UI 1.7 books. At the
time the jQuery UI team was still figuring out the scope and exact direction of the project,
including several direction changes at the time when Dan was writing the first book. Despite
these challenges Dan did a great job providing documentation and extensive examples on
how to use and combine the widgets and interactions jQuery UI provides.
With this book Dan brings his experience in writing on jQuery topics to teach you when
and how to use animations to create better user experiences. I hope it serves you well.
Jörn Zaefferer
jQuery UI development lead, plugin author, and QUnit maintainer
About the Author
Dan Wellman is an author and web developer based on the South coast of the UK. By day
he works alongside some of the most talented people he has had the pleasure of calling
colleagues, for a small, yet accomplished digital agency called Design Haus. By night he
writes books and tutorials on a range of frontend topics. He is hopelessly addicted to jQuery.
His life is enriched by four wonderful children, a beautiful wife, and a close circle of family
and friends. This is his fifth book.
I would like to thank the hugely supportive and patient editorial team at
Packt, without whom this book would not exist. I would also like to thank
the reviewers, especially Ben Nadel and Cyril Pierron, who put aside
their own personal projects and dedicated countless hours to ensuring
the book's technical accuracy. I'd also like to say a big Hey! to some of
my closest friends, in no particular order; Andrew Herman, Steev Bishop,
Aaron Matheson, Eamon O'Donoghue, James Zabiela, Mike Woodford, and
John Adams.
About the Reviewers
Shaiful Islam completed his graduation in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from
IIUC (International Islamic University Chittagong), and loves web development and PHP.
He is a Software Engineer, with three years of experience in web development and a
keen lover of web technology. He also loves CSS, JQuery, CodeIgniter, Cakephp, and Zend
Framework, which showed him the way to develop his career in web development and the
programming field.
His motto is: Work through best approach, commitment, skill, and keep smiling.
Currently he is working for "bGlobal Sourcing LLC" as a Software Engineer.
I would like to thank all of my friends, colleagues, and those senior
brothers who reviewed this type of book before and from whom I got
inspiration. Special thanks to everyone at Packt Publishing.
Ben Nadel is the chief software engineer at Epicenter Consulting, a Manhattan-based web
application development firm specializing in innovative custom software that transforms
the way its clients do business. He is also an Adobe Community Professional as well as an
Adobe Certified Professional in Advanced ColdFusion. In his spare time, he blogs extensively
about all aspects of obsessively thorough web application development at http://www.
bennadel.com/.
Cyril Pierron is an engineer, a web addict, tech savvy, and life curious. He started
programming at age 8, and has been working in telecommunications for the past 12 years.
He is married and a father of a lovely baby girl.
I would actually like to thank Twitter which gave me the opportunity to see
Packt Publishing message when they were looking for reviewers. Obviously
thanks to the Packt Publishing team for giving me the chance to work on
one of their titles. Lots of thanks to Dan Wellman who I actually followed
on Twitter previously to realizing I was reviewing one of his books. This is
an amazing piece that draws inspiration and Dan is the most cheerful,
open minded, and supportive person. Finally thanks to my wife who
showed quite some patience and support when I kept working on this
book after hours.
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