If you look closely, you’ll find decades-old technology. And it’s not limited to outdated websites. The fingerprints of the past are all over cutting-edge sites as well.

Sure, many of these technologies have evolved. Others have faded into the background. But we still rely on them. Perhaps more than we think.

With that, here’s a look at the old-school tech that continues to shape the web development industry.

Apache HTTP Server

Apache is no longer the top dog in web servers. However, the platform still holds a significant market share. W3Techs reports that it runs on over 30% of servers. That’s a close second to competitor Nginx.

Equally impressive is Apache’s longevity. Its initial release came way back in 1995.

The web was a much different place in those days. Most websites of that era consisted of static HTML. Let’s not forget about the low-powered hardware and limited bandwidth as well.

Apache has managed to keep up with the times. It’s a highly scalable platform that can handle large amounts of traffic. It also supports next-gen tech like HTTP/2 and IPv6.

Plus, Apache is responsible for many familiar technologies of its own. Development staples like .htaccess, gzip compression, and URL rewriting are supported.

jQuery

People continue to write off jQuery. But it’s hard to find evidence of a slowdown. The JavaScript library is used on over 77% of all websites.

Compare that number with its supposed heyday of 2012. Its usage was a mere 49% back then.

Being bundled with WordPress is one factor in jQuery’s growth. The world’s most widely used content management system (CMS) boosts those numbers. But that’s not the only reason.

Many of us are familiar with jQuery. And we know how to use it. That level of comfort continues to make it a go-to library.

Plus, it’s still in active development. jQuery continues to be refined and optimized for performance.

Yes, there are other worthy frameworks. And vanilla JavaScript has come a long way. But we bury jQuery at our own risk.

JPEG Images

We’ve been attempting to replace JPEG images for some time. Newer formats like SVG, WebP, and AVIF promise lossless compression. But this old-school file type from 1992 still bests them.

Both SVG and WebP are gaining ground. Yet JPEG carries on with a nearly 78% usage rate. Why is that?

For one, JPEG has the advantage of being a long-established format. Just about every image editing app supports it. And many of us have become used to saving images this way.

It’s also universally compatible with web browsers. WebP, for instance, doesn’t work with some legacy apps. That’s becoming less of a concern, however. Many of these browsers are vanishing from the landscape.

But after all these years, JPEG still works well for photographs. And its file size outperforms WebP in certain situations. It may not be the best option in every instance. But the format is still a viable choice.

The Command Line

The command line harkens back to a time before the graphical user interface (GUI). You may remember typing commands into MS-DOS if you’re of a certain age. And early systems like Unix were also command-based.

It almost seems ironic that the command line interface (CLI) is still a part of web development. The lineage is there, though. Linux powers many web servers, after all. But it’s also the “Throwback Thursday” of the industry.

Web hosting companies have attempted to replace or supplement the CLI. Visual control panels can replicate some functionality.

But the CLI also brings speed and efficiency to the party. Tools like WordPress have their own CLI flavors. And they can accomplish tasks without the overhead of a GUI.

It also offers fine-grain control over commands. You can target specific database tables or folders with relative ease.

The CLI survives because it’s still incredibly useful. And it beats using punch cards any day.

HTML

Maybe it’s a bit obvious. But no talk of old-school web technologies is complete without HTML. It’s still the basis of what we do.

Conceptualized in 1989, HTML saw its first release in 1991. It has since seen numerous iterations. And it is still evolving to meet the needs of the modern web.

HTML is capable of powering a website by itself. But it no longer stands alone. We can combine it with other languages to get the desired result. That could be CSS, PHP, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, or anything else that comes along.

These additional tools allow us to style and manipulate elements. We can tie in with a database to conditionally produce output. That has paved the way for the complex web applications we see today.

At 30+ years old, HTML is still as relevant as ever. And perhaps more flexible to boot.

Older Tech Continues to Find New Purpose

Longevity isn’t very common on the web. Or not on the front end, at least. Design trends come and go quickly. As do the tools and services we rely on.

But beneath all of that lies a bedrock of foundational technologies. Each of the items above qualifies. They’ve been a part of our job for decades.

And they’re far from the only ones. We didn’t delve into CSS or FTP, for instance. But they, along with dozens of other tools, are vital pieces of the jigsaw for developers.

Their continued presence brings comfort. That’s a good thing in an industry that changes so quickly.

The post How Old-School Technologies Still Shape Web Development appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Menu items generally lead to a site’s most important pages or areas and help visitors navigate easier. And, as you have to consider multiple screen sizes when designing a menu, making the navigation responsive can often make things much more complicated, especially on larger sites.

As there is no universal solution, the type or style of menu you use will depend on the kind of site you are creating. If it is a small site like a personal portfolio, a <select> drop-down menu or a simple hamburger toggle menu will probably suffice. But suppose it is a larger site like an eCommerce store that relies upon a mega-menu for navigation. In that case, a drawer-style navigation or an animated side panel menu will most likely help you.

The post 30 Simple Responsive Navigation Solutions & Tutorials appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Its main purpose is to simplify the process of writing complex JavaScript functions by bundling them into methods that can be called with just one line of code. This makes it lightweight and easy to extend with free plugins for almost any functionality you can think of.

However, using jQuery also comes with some potential downsides, such as performance issues, added overhead, a learning curve, specific version dependencies, and compatibility with newer technologies.

Despite these drawbacks, jQuery can still be incredibly useful for legacy systems or specific projects, and it remains a popular choice for many developers. In fact, there are a vast number of jQuery plugins available that can help improve the functionality of your website or application.

In this collection, we share some of our favorite jQuery plugins that we believe can help take your web development projects to the next level.

The post The 50 Most Useful jQuery Plugins for Frontend Development appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

If you’re looking for a super-easy way to implement various jQuery effects or functionality, there are some outstanding WordPress plugins that are up to the task. Here are ten freebies that will help you to harness the power of jQuery – all without the need for writing JavaScript.

jQuery Updater

The version of jQuery that comes with WordPress is not the latest and greatest. In fact, it tends to be quite a bit behind the jQuery project itself.

If you don’t need the backward compatibility of the older versions, jQuery Updater will install the latest stable release on your website. Should you run into problems, deactivating the plugin will put things back the way they were.

Date Picker by Input WP

Date Picker works in tandem with other plugins to convert a standard text input into a jQuery-powered, date-based suite of fields. Choose between a standard date picker, time picker, date ranges, and more. Plus, you can block out dates, making it suitable for use with a booking form.

The free version integrates with Contact Form 7 and Divi, while going pro adds compatibility with Gravity Forms and Ninja Forms.

Q2W3 Fixed Widget for WordPress

Fixed-position widgets are great for keeping information in front of your site’s visitors. Items like shopping carts, navigation and banner ads will stay in view, even as a user scrolls. Q2W3 Fixed Widget for WordPress makes it easy to make any widget a “sticky” one, courtesy of jQuery.

Install the plugin, activate it, click into a widget and select the “Fixed Widget” option.

FancyBox for WordPress

Web designers have long used Fancybox jQuery lightbox to add both utility and interactivity to images. The FancyBox for WordPress plugin makes it easy to integrate this tool into your website.

Any thumbnail linked to an image will automatically load in an attractive lightbox when clicked. In addition, you can customize the look and special effects via a back-end settings panel.

Smooth Scroll Page Up/Down Buttons

Add smooth scrolling effects in the form of handy up and down buttons. Click a button and it will scroll the current page (smoothly, of course) to the next or previous page/section. There’s also an optional “back to top” button.

JQuery Validation for Contact Form 7

This plugin adds jQuery form validation to the popular Contact Form 7. Easily validate the content of form fields including URLs, email addresses, dates, numbers and more.

jQuery Post Splitter

jQuery Post Splitter takes the ability of WordPress to split up large posts into multiple pages and turns it into a unique slider. So, instead of having to click on pagination and manually load in subsequent pages, the plugin uses jQuery and Ajax to quickly load in new slides of content.

It’s a much smoother and more seamless way to navigate through a long multi-part post.

Rotating Tweets

The standard Twitter Widget isn’t very flexible. Rotating Tweets brings a bit of jQuery to the fold by allowing your latest tweets to show one at a time in an animated rotation. You can display tweets as a widget or use a WordPress Shortcode.

Tabs Responsive

Easily add tabbed content within your WordPress posts and pages using a drag and drop interface. Tabs can be created within a page, post or widget. Horizontal and vertical layouts are available. Tabs Responsive also includes support for Font Awesome icons as well.

Equal Height Columns

Using a tiny, 8kb jQuery script, Equal Height Columns uses our spotlighted JS library to solve a web designer’s pet-peeve. Tell the plugin the targeted selectors and it does the rest. The plugin is also responsive, so you can have your fancy equally-tall columns on mobile devices, too.

All That’s Good: Brought to you by jQuery

A quick search around the WordPress Plugin Repository for jQuery brings up quite a volume of results.

It shows how popular, stable, and trusted the venerable library has become. So, whether you’re looking to add special effects like animation or some advanced functionality, chances are there is a WordPress plugin using jQuery to help you achieve your goals.

The post 10 Free WordPress Plugins for Adding jQuery Effects to Your Site appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

In this article, we’ve curated a selection of powerful, reliable, and easy-to-use form validation plugins that can make your life much easier. Whether you’re building a simple contact form or a complex multi-step checkout process, these plugins offer a range of features and customization options to fit your specific needs.

So, if you’re tired of struggling with form validation, check out these plugins and libraries and see how they can streamline your workflow and improve the user experience on your website or application.

Parsley.js

Parsley.js is a lightweight and feature-rich form validation library that offers a unique approach to form validation. Instead of validating forms with JavaScript, it uses data attributes embedded in the DOM to achieve the same function.

This makes it easy to configure and highly customizable, with the ability to override almost every default behavior to fit your specific form requirements.

quickValidation.js

QuickValidation.js is a form validation library that operates similarly to Parsley.js above. It uses a data-validate attribute in the input tag to assign validation rules, rather than defining them in the JavaScript code.

For example, you can string together rules like required,number, or range=0-99, and then add the .quickValidate class and a data-name attribute to name your field for errors.

jQuery Ketchup Plugin

Ketchup is a lightweight form validation plugin that comes bundled with 18 basic validations and allows you to quickly write your own validations and override default behaviors. With a minified size of only 3.4KB, it’s a lightweight plugin for validating your forms.

The plugin checks a form field’s data-validate attribute by default to find matching validations. Validations are separated by commas and can be grouped together within a single validate() indicator. Additionally, validations can have arguments, which are also separated by commas.

jQuery Validation Plugin

jQuery Validation is a user-friendly plugin that simplifies client-side form validation. With a “drop-in” installation process, it’s easy to use the plugin on your website or application. The plugin comes bundled with a useful set of validation methods and provides an API to allow for custom validations.

To use the plugin, you simply need to add a single line of jQuery to select the form and apply the plugin, along with annotations on each element to specify the validation rules. This makes it quick and easy to implement form validation and ensure that user input is accurate and complete.

IV.js – Javascript Input Validation

IV.js is a jQuery library that simplifies the process of validating user input and working with validation filters. To use IV.js, simply add the IValidate class to your form, and you’re ready to start validating user input.

FormValidation

The FormValidation library offers extensive support for various input types and validation rules, such as required fields, email validation, phone number validation, credit card validation, and more. The library also provides real-time feedback to users while they are filling out the form, indicating whether their input is valid or not.

It also provides seamless integrations with popular front-end frameworks such as Bootstrap, Foundation, Materialize, and Semantic UI. This integration feature ensures consistency in user interfaces and makes it easy for developers to add the form validation library to their existing codebase.

Guardian

Guardian is a versatile jQuery plugin designed to provide robust and customizable form validation. It offers flexibility and extensibility, allowing developers to tailor the validation rules to meet specific project needs.

Validatr

Validatr is a powerful JavaScript library that leverages HTML5 input attributes to provide comprehensive form validation. It supports various input types, including color, date, email, number, and range, and provides flexible validation rules for the input types text, checkbox, and radio.

The library uses native validation wherever possible, using Modernizr to test for browser support. When a specific input type is not natively supported, Validatr uses its own ruleset to supplement the validation process. Regardless of the input type, the validation message is displayed to the user, providing clear feedback on any validation errors.

Formance.js

Formance.js a powerful library that provides formatting and validation for form fields, inspired by the popular jQuery.payment library from Stripe. The library is designed to offer comprehensive support for various input types and validation rules, ensuring a smooth and reliable user experience.

While client-side validation can be bypassed, it still plays an essential role in enhancing the user experience. With this library, you can take advantage of client-side validation to improve the quality of user inputs and reduce the number of errors submitted.

jQuery Validate

jQuery Validate is a versatile jQuery plugin designed to make form validation easy and efficient using data attributes. With this plugin, developers can easily set up validation rules for various form inputs, including required fields, email addresses, phone numbers, and more.

jQuery Form Validate

jQuery Form Validate is a powerful jQuery plugin designed to simplify and streamline the form validation process. With this plugin, developers can quickly and easily validate HTML forms by utilizing HTML5 data attributes applied to each input.

One-Validation

One-Validation is a comprehensive library of regular expressions designed for general validation purposes. With this library, developers can easily validate various input types, including email addresses, phone numbers, URLs, and more, using the power of regular expressions.

Validarium

Validarium is a simple and easy-to-use jQuery validation plugin that builds on the powerful jQuery Validate library. With Validarium, developers can quickly and efficiently validate form inputs using various validation rules, including required fields, email addresses, phone numbers, and more.

Validate Barebones Validation

Validate Barebones Validation is a powerful and versatile jQuery validation plugin designed to provide a customizable and extendable solution for form validation. As the name suggests, this plugin offers a barebones framework for developers to build upon, allowing for maximum flexibility and customization.

The post 15 Form Validation jQuery Plugins & Libraries appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

In addition to typography control, the collection also features several jQuery plugins for animating your text, controlling responsive type, and recreating some fantastic text effects that are typically only achievable using motion editors.

Whether you’re looking to add subtle typography effects or create complex text animations, these plugins provide a wide range of options to help you achieve your design goals. With their intuitive interfaces and robust feature sets, these jQuery plugins are valuable resources for developers and designers looking to enhance the visual appeal of their web typography.

FlowType.JS

FlowType.js lets you configure font-size and line-height ratios of your typography, helping you improve their overall appeal. You can also specify maximum and minimum width thresholds to control FlowType.js.

Squishy

Squishy is a useful plugin that will automatically resize your text to fit precisely into the container (with no extra work on your part). It comes with a series of options so that you can control the “squishiness”: maxSize, minSize, maxWidth, and minWidth.

slabText

slabText is a plugin that will help you create those big, bold, and responsive headlines that are very popular at the moment. The script splits your headlines into rows and then resizes each row to fill the available horizontal space.

FitText

Similar in functionality to Squishy above, FitText will allow you to have scalable headlines on your responsive layout that will fill the width of the parent element.

TypeButter

TypeButter allows you to set optical kerning for any font on your website. It comes packaged with Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, Times, and Verdana, but if you need another font, you can add your own.

Hatchshow

Animated Typography Plugins

Textillate.js

Textillate.js is a fantastic plugin for applying amazing CSS3 animations to any block of text. You will also need lettering.js and animate.css to use this plugin.

funnyText.js

funnyText.js is a plugin that will allow you to create “funny and crazy moving” typography very quickly.

Lettering.js

Lettering.js, similar in functionality to funnyText.js above, is a jQuery plugin that gives you complete down-to-the-letter control of your web type.

Jumble

Jumble is a plugin that will animate and “jumble” up the colors of your text headers. Choose a color range and set parameters for whether the shuffle is based on brightness or saturation hue.

Wrapping Text Plugins

CircleType.js

CircleType.js is a plugin for setting type around a circle.

jQSlickWrap

jQSlickWrap is a plugin that allows you to quickly and accurately wrap your text around the content of floated images.

Text Effects Plugins

No Vacancy

The simple novacancy.js plugin will give your text a fantastic text neon golden effect.

Flipping Text

Antiquify.js

This unique plugin will ‘antiquify’ your text. Randomly applied aberrations make text look like it came straight off an old, antique printing press.

…and finally…

jQuery Typography Troll

Typography Troll offers an easy way to confuse readers who try to distinguish which of several similar fonts you’re using (like Helvetica and Arial) by randomly assigning a font family to each character in the selected text.

The post 20 Free jQuery Typography & Text Effect Plugins appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Fortunately, there are many free date picker plugins available that can enhance the user experience and make it easier to pick dates. Adding a date picker to your form is a straightforward process, and once you learn how to do it, you’ll never go back. That’s why we’ve scoured the web to find the best date picker plugins and compiled them all in one post for your convenience.

In this collection, you’ll find a variety of plugins, including vanilla JS plugins, jQuery plugins, and extensions for popular frameworks like The 40 Best Free Bootstrap 5 Templates & Themes for 2023Bootstrap. No matter your needs, we’re confident you’ll find a plugin that works for you. With these plugins, you can improve your users’ experience and make it easier for them to select dates on your website or application.

1. Flatpickr

The lightweight Flatpickr plugin is easy to use and even easier to setup. It’s designed with simplicity, so the default UI should blend into any layout. If you take a peek at the examples page, you’ll notice this date picker isn’t very complex. But that’s often what users want: a simple interface to input data and move on.

With Flatpickr, you can customize the initial date, month, and year along with restrictions on which date(s) can be picked. Plus, you can add an optional time parameter using the 12H or 24H clock. This is undoubtedly one of the better date picker plugins for its design, UX, and features.

2. Pickadate.js

Another choice I really like is the Pickadate.js plugin. This is designed to be mobile-friendly and fully responsive, so it’s a great solution for all devices.

Pickadate runs on jQuery, so you need that library as a dependency. However, this file is pretty lightweight, and it doesn’t take much to get it working, so even with jQuery, you shouldn’t notice any page lags. This offers a date and a time selection menu, so it’s a fully-featured option no matter what data you’re collecting.

3. Date Range Picker

Input range pickers are extremely common with scheduling programs and visual data applications. For example, Google Analytics uses its own date range picker for visitor data over a specific website.

To recreate this effect try the Date Range Picker. It’s designed to fit into Bootstrap’s CSS stylesheet but can also be used solo. Plus, it supports multi-month pickers, single-month pickers, and pre-defined values for common date ranges(past week, past month, etc.).

4. Datepair.js

To use something a little simpler for range selection, try Datepair.js. This relies on dual input fields for selecting the starting date & ending date of a range. It can also include time ranges based on your settings and how you configure the plugin.

Is this better than a single date picker UI? That’s up to you(or your client) to decide. But this is a simple plugin to set up, and your visitors may prefer the single field inputs.

5. DateTimePicker

Here’s one of the more unique plugins with quite an abnormal interface. The DateTimePicker plugin has its own responsive dropdown menu that lets the user select their date/time using plus & minus icons.

On the one hand, this is easier to jump around and quickly change the month/year with a few taps. But it’s also not the typical calendar UI, so it may take some adjusting from users who aren’t familiar with this interface.

There are pros & cons to everything, so I say take a peek at the plugin and see what you think. This does support separate date & time inputs, but you can also combine them, making datetime selection just one click away.

6. glDatePicker

For a detailed design and tons of optional features, check out the glDatePicker plugin. Considering how much you get, it’s fairly lightweight and measures about 7KB when minified. This runs on top of jQuery, so you must also consider that. But it’s one of the few plugins that offer gorgeous theming for calendar date selection screens.

It has a few pre-designed templates but also has CSS properties that you can restyle yourself. Not to mention all the JS functions have callbacks, so if you’re comfortable with coding, you can add your own features into the mix.

7. Wickedpicker

While this isn’t technically a date picker, it is one of the better time pickers out there. Wickedpicker is a jQuery-powered time selection plugin that works on any input field. It supports user input for hours/minutes and the AM/PM setting. You can also run it on a 24h clock with a simple JS option.

Some date picker plugins have time selection, but it comes as an extra feature. This plugin is designed solely for time inputs, so it’s a nice choice if that’s all you need.

8. Bootstrap Datepicker

Anyone familiar with Bootstrap knows just how useful it is for new projects. If you’re frequently designing sites on Bootstrap, then you should keep this Bootstrap Datepicker saved.

The design includes a section for changing the month & year along with a time selector for altering minutes/hours in your date picker. It blends perfectly into the BS GUI, so it’s undoubtedly a staple for anyone using Bootstrap.

9. Foundation Datepicker

Another popular frontend framework is Foundation, and if you’re more into that library, you should check out this Foundation datepicker also 100% free. It also comes with a time picker and options to include the time inside the date selection screen. You can even define dates based on fixed settings(i.e., only certain dates are available) and limit those dates to certain times.

You can even restyle the time input with fixed choices like 15-minute intervals. You can do a lot with this plugin, so it’s a great addition to any Foundation website.

10. FoxRunSoftware DatePicker

This is one of the top plugins on GitHub for jQuery date pickers. It’s simply titled “DatePicker” but to distinguish it from the rest, it’s the plugin designed by FoxRunSoftware.

It comes with a clean interface, and by default, it uses a 3-month GUI window for date selection. This feels just like the Google Analytics picker, except it’s a bit smaller. The callbacks are pretty simple to code, and you have a lot of control over how to manage the UX. Certainly a date picker worth saving if you want to replicate the Analytics GUI.

11. jQ Datepicker

Here’s one more date picker plugin with the simple title of Datepicker. Again it runs on jQuery, but this one’s designed by a Chinese developer Fengyuan Chen. This Datepicker plugin is phenomenal, and it has a ton of documentation for newer JS developers.

The main demo page is great for toying around, but check out the GitHub repo if you want to get this plugin setup & running on your website.

And if you’re ever looking for more date-picker plugins, try searching GitHub. Web developers release new plugins all the time, so you never know what you’ll find.

The post 10 Free Open-Source Date Picker JavaScript Plugins appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

However, you might want to consider taking it a step further and restyling them to better match your website’s design.

Thankfully, there are many free JavaScript plugins available that allow you to customize the look and feel of your progress bars. These plugins offer a variety of extra features, such as animations and more advanced design options, to help make your progress bars more engaging and visually appealing.

With the plugins below, you can easily create progress bars that seamlessly integrate into your website’s design and add extra polish to your user interface.

1. LineProgressbar

The jQuery LineProgressbar is a free plugin that’s super thin and lightweight. It works with any modern progress bar elements and takes basic options for total fill length, bar color, and height/width(among other features).

Check out the demo page for some examples and code snippets you can use on your website. This is probably the best progress bar plugin for anyone willing to use jQuery. It’s easy to work with, and it’ll run in all major browsers.

2. MProgress.js

Another simple option I really like is MProgress.js. This is built around Google’s material design style, so you may notice it closely resembles some of Google’s loading bars.

It comes with four different loading bars and four different animation styles. They’re all visible on the main page, so you can see which might fit your website. Super easy and super lightweight. What more could you ask for?

3. ProgressBar.js

We’ve all seen the progress bars that run across the top of a webpage. These are getting much more common, and they’re typically used for dynamically-loaded pages.

ProgressBar.js is a free plugin that replicates this feature. But it doesn’t just rely on bars at the top of the page. You can use this plugin for any custom shape, from circles to triangles and custom parallelograms.

4. goalProgress

The goalProgress plugin is definitely the simplest of the bunch. It’s primarily meant for use in tracking numbers on an input field, but it can be used for any similar progress bar. You won’t find much on the homepage besides a basic demo featuring a charity donation bar.

There’s far more info on the GitHub repo showing what this does and how to get it setup. I’d recommend this as a simple starting point for basic progress animations. For anything else, check out some of the other plugins here.

5. μProgress

I had never heard of μProgress before researching for this article. Yet it’s one of the best progress bar plugins on the web. This was developed as a performant progress bar with a focus on custom animations. They all run on the computer’s GPU, which frees up tasks for other page elements to render faster.

You can read a lot more about this process and find setup details in the documentation. It’s a cool project with a full plugin API for adding custom features too.

6. nanobar.js

If you’re looking for a pure vanilla JavaScript progress plugin, look no further. With nanobar.js, you get a super small JS library built around progress bar animations. The whole thing measures under 700 bytes when gzipped, so it’s very small.

Check out the homepage for some examples with bars embedded in the page along with a top loading bar fixed to the full browser width. It can run on just a single function call which makes this perfect for non-JS coders as well as devs who staunchly oppose using jQuery.

7. progressStep

The majority of progress bars fill up a percentage or a number counter. But progressStep is different. This jQuery plugin lets you develop a breadcrumb progress bar where the user works through different steps in a pre-defined process.

This process might be signing up for a new account on a website or following e-commerce checkout flow. Either way, this is an excellent plugin for adding that kind of functionality to your site. It’s free to use and has some great documentation on the GitHub repo.

8. CProgress

CProgress is designed solely for circular loading bars. These are definitely not the norm, especially on websites. But you can find them handy for Ajax-powered widgets that load new elements into the DOM without refreshing the page.

It comes with a few different skins and plenty of optional features like custom speeds and numeric limits. Everything you need to know can be found on the main page or the main repo along with a download link.

9. jQuery Circle Progress

Here’s a very similar plugin also built on the jQuery library. But with the jQuery Circle Progress plugin you get more variety to pick through. There are more custom themes and more options to work with.

The downside? It can weigh a bit more, so it’s not the best solution for every project.

And no matter what you need, I’d guarantee one of these plugins can help save you time and frustration to avoid coding a progress bar from scratch.

The post 9 Free Progress Bar JavaScript Plugins For Web Designers appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The venerable JavaScript library first debuted in 2006 and (as of this writing) is used by over three-quarters of all websites. Both its success and longevity are something to behold.

Yet, it’s also the target of a lot of online vitriol. In some circles, developers are loathed to give jQuery its due – instead focusing on the latest buzzworthy libraries.

This is understandable, as junior competitors like Vue and React have a lot of exciting features – if nowhere near the number of users. People naturally want to talk about what’s new. Established products that just keep chugging along don’t generate the same level of fanaticism.

But that doesn’t mean we should ignore jQuery altogether. It’s made a massive impact on the web and is still useful today. Join me as I take a look back at the library’s past and what the future may hold.

Bringing Cross-Browser DOM Manipulation and Effects to the Masses

Before jQuery came along, the ability to implement JavaScript with cross-browser support was difficult. In addition, the concept of using CSS for advanced effects like animation wasn’t fully realized yet. Thus, part of the library’s aim was to ensure that tasks like event handling and DOM (Document Object Model) manipulation would work on a variety of system configurations.

And you didn’t need to be a JavaScript expert to use it. Even a little bit of background knowledge would empower a developer to, say, add or remove CSS classes from an element based on user interaction. The documentation offered up many useful code examples that could be modified to fit a particular need.

It also allowed for the implementation of advanced UI elements, with the help of jQuery UI. Features such as accordions, date pickers, and tabbed interfaces were built right into the project. They could also be styled via CSS or a custom theme. And its architecture also allowed for custom plugins to be built as well.

In other words, it brought consistency to an otherwise inconsistent area of development and was fairly easy to use. This made jQuery an attractive option for developers looking to add JavaScript to their projects.

The library has been used by all manner of different products. For example, it has been bundled with WordPress for several years now. And, with WordPress powering over 40% of all websites, that has undoubtedly boosted the usage numbers for jQuery as well.

In all, the ability to work with the sheer variety of browsers and devices out there made jQuery a safe, reliable choice for developers.

The Criticisms

There’s no such thing as a perfect tool. Everything web designers use has its flaws and shortcomings. jQuery is no different.

Over the years, the library has endured a lot of criticism. And plenty of fair points have been raised. Here are a few that stand out:

jQuery Is No Longer Necessary

As we mentioned, jQuery initially provided cover to developers who wanted to bring advanced features to their projects without having to worry about compatibility. Well, there are now more options for doing so.

CSS, in particular, can replace jQuery in many instances. Elements like animation, for example, can be crafted without the need for a third-party dependency. It’s a native solution that can take advantage of hardware acceleration. The result is lightning-quick performance without the overhead.

In addition, vanilla JavaScript has also come a long way since the early days of jQuery. With wide browser support, developers can be more confident in what they build with it.

jQuery Is Inefficient/Antiquated

When a project has been around for 15+ years, there are bound to be some inefficiencies. However, it’s worth noting that the version of jQuery your project utilizes can make a significant difference.

Consider the case of WordPress. Through several versions of the content management system (CMS), jQuery 1.1.x was bundled. These legacy releases were kept in part to maintain backward compatibility with themes and plugins.

The last of these, jQuery 1.12.4, was released in 2016. Not until WordPress 5.6 (released in 2020) did the more modern jQuery 3.5.1 make its way into core.

If you’re still stuck with those older versions, performance can definitely suffer. But, in my own testing, sites running later jQuery releases seem to perform significantly better in Google PageSpeed Insights. Of course, your experience may vary.

That’s not to say jQuery is always going to be the most efficient solution. Still, progress has been made in this area.

A Look at the Future

For all the criticism, it doesn’t look like jQuery is going away anytime soon. Part of that is due to the massive number of products that depend on it.

For instance, separating it from WordPress core would be a monumental task. And that’s not even counting the number of themes and plugins that also use the library. Even a highly coordinated effort to sever ties would likely take years.

The other thing to note is that jQuery is still in active development. There’s been an effort to bring it up to speed with the modern web. Recent releases have improved performance and fixed bugs.

In addition, the project has placed its focus squarely on jQuery core. Both the jQuery UI and jQuery Mobile projects are winding down, freeing up resources for the core revamp. The content delivery network (CDN) that hosts the project’s code is also being fortified.

The upshot is that jQuery is still improving and therefore continues to be an option for web designers.

Should You Still Use jQuery?

Admittedly, I’m not a hardcore JavaScript developer. I can’t tell you the best library for your project, or whether you should use a library at all. These are very much personal decisions, based on preference and need.

If you’re comfortable using jQuery, you can be confident that the library will still work and receive updates. Frankly, that should be enough of a reason to carry on using it.

As far as what other developers may think – haters are gonna hate. But don’t let that stop you from using the tools you enjoy and trust. For more than a decade, jQuery has earned it.

The post Despite Its Critics, jQuery Forges Ahead appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

To help you get started, we’ve compiled a small collection of CSS and jQuery solutions for making HTML image captions. These solutions vary in their methods and purposes, but all are worth considering. Whether you’re using static HTML or a CMS like WordPress or Joomla, there’s sure to be a codebase that works for your needs.

We hope that this collection serves as a starting point for your research into image captions and helps you find the perfect solution for your own projects. With the right tools and techniques, you can create stunning image captions that enhance the overall visual appeal of your website or application.

CSS Image Captions

Creating image captions with CSS effects can be challenging, but these examples use properties and transition animations for seamless effects. They provide modern and customizable designs without the need for extensive coding knowledge. See how they can enhance your website’s visual appeal.

Label.css

If you’re looking for a great CSS image caption library, label.css is one of the best options out there. With label.css, you can easily add class names to captioned images, which will then be updated in the HTML. You can position captions anywhere over the image, even in the corners, giving you full control over the layout.

One of the standout features of label.css is the ability to hide captions until the user hovers over an image. This can be especially useful when you want captions to display as static text on the page but also want to incorporate hidden animation effects for a more dynamic user experience.

Hongkiat Image Captions

One of the best things about the Hongkiat article on image captions is the variety of CSS techniques used to create them. The article features a gallery of different image captions, each using a different CSS technique. This allows you to mix and match your favorite animations to create a completely unique interface.

All of the codes featured in the article have been tested in modern browsers and support all of the major CSS prefixes. However, one potential issue some users may have is that the script does not follow the traditional figure/figcaption HTML structure. Instead, the caption content is held inside a span within a container div. While this still works perfectly fine, it doesn’t adhere to the exact markup standards.

Slide-In Image Captions

CSS-Tricks is a well-known resource in the web design community, and their tutorial on creating sliding image captions is no exception. The tutorial has been extensively tested in various browsers and works flawlessly, impressing users with its stunning effects and adherence to standard HTML syntax.

One of the standout features of the CSS-Tricks tutorial is its use of the figure and figcaption elements, which are not just included for good measure. These elements help the browser differentiate between the various page elements and provide a more structured, semantic markup that improves accessibility and SEO.

jQuery Image Captions

jQuery offers widespread browser support for consistent image caption display. While CSS may be easier for some developers, jQuery is a valuable tool for enhancing the frontend experience and creating dynamic, interactive websites.

Caption.js

Caption.js is an excellent library that stands out as a valuable resource for web developers looking to create image captions. One of the standout features of this library is its ability to target images based on your own jQuery selectors, including classes and IDs. Additionally, it automatically includes the figure and figcaption elements, ensuring that the final page render is displayed properly with the help of some CSS positioning.

This level of automation can save developers time and effort, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their project while still creating stunning image captions. Overall, Caption.js is a powerful resource that can help take your image captions to the next level and enhance the overall user experience on your website or application.

jQuery.imageCaption

jQuery.imageCaption is a highly customizable plugin that extracts captions from image alt text and renders the figure and figcaption elements for SEO benefits.

Simply calling the imageCaption() function is all that’s needed to apply it to a CMS post or WordPress blog. The plugin transfers any classes added to the img element to the figure element for greater CSS control.

Captionate

If you’re looking for an underrated open-source project for image captions, Captionate is definitely worth checking out. Developed by North Krimsly for use in various CMS engines, it offers a straightforward solution for implementing image captions on your website.

You can find a tutorial guide that explains the process of implementing Captionate on your own website. Essentially, you’ll write an HTML5 img element with the class .caption, which will be picked up by the jQuery script. The alt attribute text is then transferred into a figcaption element and written into the HTML.

HCaptions

HCaptions is a versatile jQuery plugin that can handle all caption content, not just images. Developed specifically for rendering caption content into HTML, it offers a broad spectrum of applications for web developers.

With HCaptions, you have a range of options for controlling the speed and positioning of each caption, giving you greater flexibility and control over your webpage elements. While there may be better solutions for managing HTML images specifically, the HCaptions plugin serves a terrific purpose for captioning other standard webpage elements.

You may be surprised at how resourceful these image caption scripts can be. Not only do they enhance the visual appeal of your website or application, but when used with valid HTML5 code, they also provide an opportunity for Google to crawl your pages and index related content.

With the right tools and techniques, you can create stunning image captions that enhance the user experience and improve the overall functionality of your website or application.

The post The Best Open Source CSS & jQuery Image Captions appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.