For the love of jQuery!

I've been developing websites for the past 8 years; both for big companies around the UK and US as well as smaller companies in Exeter, UK. There's nothing more exciting when creating websites than to get to grips with some really flashy UI's that will plug-and-play but also allow you to delve deep into the underlying code and modify it to your needs.

I appreciate jQuery has been around for over 4 years now, and I'm far too late to express this as a new-found technology that you must have - but it's still worth talking about as it's popularity and ease of use in my opinion is snowballing.

As a freelance website designer in Exeter, there's nothing better when brainstorming with new and existing clients than being able to show them something flashy, quickly and uncomplicated to give them that all important vision of where we can go with their website.

Generally I start with a standard jQuery plugin and as the functionality dictates I then take a look under the hood to customise it as required. Have a look at my portfolio page of websites; a number of which use customised jQuery plugins to create cool image galleries and UI's. Check out The Paper Florist's website to see how to customise the 'Simple Controls Image Gallery' to be combined with the jQuery Lightbox - simple yet surprisingly effective!

Why aren't I using this fantabulous technology already, I hear you ask!? Simple answer: I really don't know. It's lightweight, cross-browser compatible, powerful, UI rich and most of all: easy to bend to your needs.

So....next time you start messing around with images, navigation or anything clientside on a website, take a sneak at jQuery and code with a smile!

About me:

If you're interested, feel free to contact me about website design; or have a browse through my website and portfolio to see how jQuery's changed my life.