Comments on: jQuery Tools

By: DavidMark

DavidMark — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:43:27 +0000

Anything built on top of jQuery is folly. And SWFObject has always been junk.

Using this type of stuff for tabs (of all things) is programming for failure. Spend your time reading and learning, rather than debating fantasy script A vs. fantasy script B. Isn’t it obvious at this point that the authors can’t even make their demos work in *current* browsers?

By: nbr

nbr — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:47:13 +0000

flashembed()? $f()?
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Needless namespace pollution alone makes jQuery Tools look like crap to me.

By: shadedecho

shadedecho — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:40:02 +0000

The “flashembed” tool is meh.
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1) it should probably change it’s name. Adobe likes to protect “flash”, even in open source project names. SWFObject knows about that.
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2) Speaking of @SWFObject, flashembed doesn’t expose one of the most important features that it provides, the ability to do version detection and inline-auto-updating of the plugin version for the users, via Express Install.
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3) IMHO, a big part of what makes jQuery so cool is how it operates on sets/collections of DOM objects. SWFs are very rarely duplicated on a page and in need of collection-based operations. So really, this plugin is just trying to stuff already standard and well supported functionality available via SWFObject needlessly into the jQuery namespace, for the sake of jQuery syntactical sugar, which in this case it really doesn’t buy much of.
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I prefer to keep libraries separate unless there’s a compelling reason to shove them together. I love jQuery, and I love SWFObject. But I don’t love someone stealing (ONLY) part of what SWFObject already does well and stuffing it in a $() facade for the heck of it.

By: BarelyFitz

BarelyFitz — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:51:39 +0000

Ugh. I just found out that the overlay tool (and presumably other tools in this set) do not attempt to fix IE6 bugs. So for example, if there are form inputs on the page, then they show through the overlay. It’s one thing to say you don’t support transparent PNGs, but this makes it unusable for IE6.

By: stylo

stylo — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:30:55 +0000

Nice.

Really too bad there is no image viewer rolled into the nice content popup thingy (overlay?). That would be perfect.

By: tmallen

tmallen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:43:37 +0000

Where are the widgets??

By: Nosredna

Nosredna — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:18:06 +0000

@cpradio, from the comments, it seems the author already has fixed the problem. I like jQueryUI, but aside from Tabs, I don’t know if I’d use it again. To me the project seems to move in slow motion. I do like the ThemeRoller. I’m glad to see some competition, frankly. Not everyone needs the same thing.

By: cpradio

cpradio — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:58:43 +0000

Anyone interested in that toolset should be cautious regarding it as it doesn’t exactly use the best practices when working with jQuery. You can read more at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allTrades/~3/TnPtdBjcfqQ/jquery-tools-vs-jquery-ui

I’ll admit, I didn’t write the article, but I find it quite interesting.

By: Spocke

Spocke — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:27:54 +0000

Nice work! I’m impressed and I’m nearly never impressed.

By: icoloma

icoloma — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:39:26 +0000

A couple of comments (using Firefox 3):
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* Exposing a form only works with the mouse, not when tabbing with the keyboard.
* Exposing a video does not makew much sense if I pause it at any time. I must wait until the video ends to get again access to the page.
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Other than that, I absolutely love this feature.

By: Nosredna

Nosredna — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:20:56 +0000

The horizontal scrollable seems funky in Chrome. Other than that, pretty nice.

By: Darkimmortal

Darkimmortal — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:17:50 +0000

Just so I’m clear, this is essentially a competitor to jQuery UI? The two aren’t related are they?

No, they’re not.

By: marcolepsy

marcolepsy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:17:07 +0000

Same guy who does the JS interfacing for the Flowplayer project. Both (flowplayer and this) have been useful to me. Good work all around.

By: pnewhook

pnewhook — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:27:20 +0000

Just so I’m clear, this is essentially a competitor to jQuery UI? The two aren’t related are they?

Very cool looking though.

By: Darkimmortal

Darkimmortal — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:05:35 +0000

Finally something decent and not overly gimmicky made in jQuery :)

By: WillPeavy

WillPeavy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:38:17 +0000

Expose is a nice feature. I think I’ll use it in an upcoming project

By: BarelyFitz

BarelyFitz — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:37:05 +0000

These are nice and compact. Unfortunately the overlay isn’t adjustable height, but otherwise nice work.

By: KimL

KimL — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:22:34 +0000

Wow, that’s very interesting, and no issues with browser support that I can spot? Nice stuff, have to try that out.

By: igaenssley

igaenssley — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:10:50 +0000

Very nice work!

By: lmjabreu

lmjabreu — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:52:29 +0000

@okonomiyaki3000 viewed all of the demos with Safari 4 final for osx with no issues.