Is Top Rated jQuery Plugins the Best?

jQuery is great and the amount of free extensions is simply amazing! But the number of plugins available are almost paralysing and I believe we are lacking a smart solution to quickly find the best jQuery plugins offered by the community. This is why many posts listing a few randomly selected jQuery plugins become popular on delicious in no time… The jQuery site provide a solution but in my opinion there are several issues with the way the plugins are presented. First of all I don’t trust ...

a service where most of the top rated elements have only 1 vote (tells me that the developer like his own work – but no one else took the time to rate it…)! I think it’s really sad that the ranking does not take into account the number of votes  plugins have received and just list all with same number of stars – in what looks like random order. I also noticed that the same plugins show up again on different pages. The quality of this service may be the reason why the most popular javascript framework to date can’t convince more of it’s fans to rate plugins to help each other??? I would expect that the really good plugins would have hundreds if not thousands of of votes but it is not the case – not at all! I decided to browse through the endless lists of plugins to pick some of the plugins with more than 3 votes…. and I didn’t find anyone with more than 9 votes except one! (I stopped at page 15… out of 84) I’m concerned that really brilliant plugins from talented developers are never surfaced and just fade away into the endless masses…sad sad sad! Let’s take a look at the top rated plugins according to jquery.com taking into account the number of votes given… I’m not sure though that these are truly the best – what is your opinion and how do you find the jQuery goodies you use in your work?

UI.Layout – The Ultimate Page Layout Manager

(51 votes)

This plugin was inspired by the extJS border-layout, and recreates that functionality as a jQuery plug-in. The UI.Layout plug-in can create any UI look you want – from simple headers or sidebars, to a complex application with toolbars, menus, help-panels, status bars, sub-forms, etc.

Combined it with other jQuery UI widgets to create a sophisticated application. There are no limitations or issues – this widget is ready for production use. Our website includes everything you need: documentation, demos and downloads. All feedback and requests are welcome as development is ongoing. If you create a good looking application using UI.Layout, please let us know.

jquery.dynatree.js

(9 votes)

Dynatree is a jQuery plugin that allows to dynamically create html tree view controls using JavaScript.

editEase

(8 votes)

This is a very small CMS, with no database requirements and really more than a simple plugin as it also contains several php files. It is accepted as a plugin on jquery.com and I decided to include it because it is so clean and seams to be very easy to work with. editEasy is ideal for small sites, or site where only a small amount of “content management” is required.

PicNet JQuery Table Filter

(7 votes)

This plugin adds a row to the section of a table and adds filters that allows real time filtering of tabular data. Please see the home page for full details.

Demo

See the demo page for a live example of this page.

TinySort

(7 votes)

A plugin to sort child nodes by (sub) contents or attributes. Very useful for ordering unordered lists or tables, but works on any type of node. Download it to get documentation and examples.It doesn’t get easier to sort fx. listsbut it is also possible to apply more complex sorting logic:

$(”li”).tsort();

$(”ul#people>li”).tsort();

$(”ul#people>li”).tsort(”img”,{order:”desc”,attr:”alt”});

Flot

(7 votes)

Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery. It produces graphical plots of arbitrary datasets on-the-fly client-side.

The focus is on simple usage (all settings are optional), attractive looks and interactive features like zooming. Demo

jLINQ

(7 votes)

If you’ve used the .NET Framework, chances are you’ve also used LINQ. The features found in LINQ allow you to work with collections in-memory to query, sort and manage data, much like you would with a SQL command. LINQ also allows you to connect directly to a database to manage records all within your IDE.

jLINQ works like .NET LINQ and lets you use commands to query collections that are in memory. jLINQ copies many of the same commands you find in LINQ like skip or take along with certain aggregate functions like sum.

Column Hover

(6 votes)

Very simple way to highlight columns in a table when the mouse is hovering over them.

James

(5 votes)

James is a jQuery plugin which provides a simple way to implement easily an autocomplete input.

Simply like this:

$(”.input”).james(”script.php”);

Where script.php is the path of the script to call. You can also customize it easily so as to perform specific implementations. Demo

jQuery File Tree

(5 votes)

jQuery File Tree is a configurable, AJAX file browser plugin for jQuery. You can create a customized, fully-interactive file tree with as little as one line of JavaScript code.

jQuery form wizard plugin

(4 votes)

The form wizard plugin is based on jQuery and can be used to simulate wizard like page flows for forms without having to navigate between different pages.

The plugin is very unobtrusive and gives the developer great freedom on how they set up the flow of the different steps in their wizards, as the plugin supports creating specific routes in the form depending on the user input. Demo

Form suggestion and validation box in “Twitter style”

(4 votes)

This plugins reproduces the same suggestion box style that you can see on Twitter signup page: https://twitter.com/signup

The usage is pretty simple. It shows a “tip” text when the input field is focused and a feedback when the validation passes or fails.

jQTouch

(4 votes)

jQTouch is a jQuery library for creating Mobile WebKit web apps. It’s functionality is currently comparable to iUI, though it utilizes native WebKit animations. It is a jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and other forward-thinking devices.

ContextMenu Plugin

(4 votes)

This plugin enables you to display a custom context menu on right click in browsers that support it. This is commonly used in web applications that are simulating desktop behavior or wish to add advanced functionality for their users. demo

Post tags: developer toolbox, javascript, jQuery, plugins

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