35 Fresh JavaScript/jQuery Tools and Resources

It's time for more JavaScript and jQuery goodies here on Noupe. Today we are featuring fresh JavaScript Development Frameworks, code optimization and minimization tools, reference tables, compatibility issues, common coding errors, image manipulation techniques and graph solutions. Please feel free to submit further resources in the comments to this post!

JavaScript Development Frameworks

php.js php.js is an open source project that brings high-level PHP functions to low-level JavaScript platforms such as webbrowsers, AIR, V8 and rhino.

jai - javascript audio interface J.A.I. or "Javascript Audio Interface" is the world's first javascript interface for web <audio>. JAI uses no images for it's player interface, all the graphics are rendered to a <canvas> element at run-time. The click-able play-list area is a list of links that are style using CSS. JAI is designed to provide juke-box functionality to <audio> enabled browsers that use the Ogg Vorbis audio codec. JAI is open-source. Feel free to download, modify and use the code in your own projects.

jQuery.sheet - Visual Interop Development jQuery.sheet gives you all sorts of possibilities when it comes to giving your web application a spreadsheet style interface with MS Excel style calculations.

JavaScript Frameworks Playground: jsFiddle jsFiddle is a shell editor that eases writing JavaScript code by creating a custom environment based on popular JS frameworks.

BaseJS: A Mobile (Safari) Javascript Framework BaseJS is lightweight (less than 8KB when minified), fully-compatible with Mobile Safari, falls back on Sizzle selector library for iPhone 1.x (when query selector support is unavailable), is object-oriented and easy to extend.

SproutCore JavaScript HTML 5 Application Framework. Create fast, native-style applications in any modern web browser without plugins.

CoffeeScript CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. Think of it as JavaScript's less ostentatious kid brother — the same genes, roughly the same height, but a different sense of style. Apart from a handful of bonus goodies, statements in CoffeeScript correspond one-to-one with their equivalent in JavaScript, it's just another way of saying it.

JavaScript Code Optimization and Minimization Tools

Writing Efficient JavaScript The title speaks for itself: here is an interesting slideshow analyzing what makes JavaScript slow and offering solutions.

Closure Compiler The Closure Compiler is a tool for making JavaScript download and run faster. It is a true compiler for JavaScript. Instead of compiling from a source language to machine code, it compiles from JavaScript to better JavaScript. It parses your JavaScript, analyzes it, removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what's left. It also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls.

Online javascript beautifier This little beautifier will reformat and reindent bookmarklets, ugly javascript, unpack scripts packed by the popular Dean Edward's packer, as well as deobfuscate scripts processed by javascriptobfuscator.com.

jQuery Code Does not have to be Ugly Resolve problems with nesting curly braces and parenthesis.

CSS & Javascript Character Entity Calculator Enter your HTML Entity Character number (such as ? or just 2335 - ?) to get the CSS and JS values for that entity.

Javascript, CSS, and (X)HTML entities in numeric order Below are the entities listed in numeric order with definition and ISO numeric code. CSS 'content' does not accept named entities or regular numeric entities such as @, but does render ASCII text and unicode.

Common Errors To Know And Compability Issues

Top 10 Things that JavaScript Got Wrong JavaScript, if only by default, is one of the most popular programming languages available. Over the years, it's been labeled as a nightmare to work with, and, to some extent, this is true! However, more often than not, what people mean to say is that the DOM API is a nightmare. Nevertheless, there are a handful of flat-out errors in the language.

Javascript - Event compatibility tables Quick overview of events browser compatibility, assuming that you know the three event registration models (traditional, W3C and Microsoft) as well as event bubbling and capturing. Most of the time is spent on the cross-browser events; the links in the first compatibility table lead to even more compatibility tables with detailed information about these events. Basic browser support for the Microsoft and W3C events is merely tested, without delving too deeply into the details.

How to Plan for the Absence of JavaScript Though the methods used to gather website traffic statistics call into question the validity of the stats themselves, the fact is that some of your website’s visitors will have JavaScript disabled. You could divide your traffic sources into four broad categories: Search engines, mobile visitors, visitors using screen readers and visitors who have JavaScript turned off. When planning your information architecture and design, you must figure out how to deal with these special groups. Here is assembled a few recent real-world scenarios to find clarity on the issue.

Image Manipulation

Lazy Load Plugin for jQuery Lazy loader is a jQuery plugin written in JavaScript. It delays loading of images in (long) web pages. Images outside of viewport (visible part of web page) won't be loaded before user scrolls to them. This is opposite of image preloading.

Spacegallery - jQuery plugin Create Beautiful jQuery Gallery in a sec! Visually. No coding. Free

GalleryView: A jQuery Content Gallery Plugin GalleryView aims to provide jQuery users with a flexible, attractive content gallery that is both easy to implement and a snap to customize.

Graphs

17 Javascript Animation Frameworks Worth Checking Out Here are some examples of Javascript animation frameworks that are really worth checking out.

Chrome Experiments These experiments were created by designers and programmers from around the world using the latest open standards, including HTML5, Canvas, SVG, and more. Their work is making the web faster, more fun, and more open – the same spirit in which we built Google Chrome.

boingPic - a javascript experiment This is a simple experiment using javascript and jQuery which allows you to make an image of your choice all boingy!

Mind-blowing JavaScript Experiments The following JavaScript experiments demonstrates the amazing capabilities of the modern browsers such as Chrome and Safari. In this post is showcased to you an array of experiments that will surely blows your mind off. Most of the following runs best in Chrome or Safari

Dygraphs: Create interactive graphs from open source Javascript library Dygraphs is an open source JavaScript library that produces an interactive, zoom-able charts of the present time series. It is mainly designed to display the dense data sets and enable the users to explore and interpret them. It is a JavaScript Visualization Library.

Building an interactive map with jQuery instead of Flash To make the map as engaging as possible, there needed to be smooth animations and crisp graphics. Traditionally such a project would require the use of Flash. We try to avoid Flash whenever possible, so we began to consider how the project could be accomplished in jQuery.

AnythingZoomer jQuery Plugin You have a small area. You mouse over it. An area pops up giving you a zoomed in closer look. This is a jQuery plugin that does it. I’m not going to tell you what you should use it for or elaborate use-case scenarios. Your own creativity can help you there.

Scripts for Adobe Illustrator CS (JavaScript) This archive includes many sample scripts (not well commented yet confused) tested with Adobe Illustrator CS3 13.0.3, Windows XP SP2 (Japanese version).

Google Chart Tools The Google Chart Tools enable adding live charts to any web page.