JavaScript isn’t the easiest of languages to learn. Many web developers who understand standard HTML are fairly intimidated by it. A new breed of JavaScript frameworks have been around for a while now and are beginning to hit the web in stride.
All modern browsers are able to run JavaScript efficiently (some recent modifications to Firefox have really sped up their engine, though). I’d highly recommend downloading and using Firefox – the plugins alone make it invaluable.
jQuery is a JavaScript framework I’ve been experimenting more and more with recently. When I put up a placeholder for a new startup, Koi Systems LLC, we didn’t have enough content for a full site but we did want to set up a nice page that described what was coming. And we wanted to do it in a few minutes!
jQuery did just the trick.
Do a search for jQuery+virtually anything, and you’ll also find that developers have built solutions, called plugins, that are ready to go! In this case, I did a search for “jQuery carousel” and found a fantastic, comprehensive jQuery carousel solution on Dynamic Drive.
Another nice thing about jQuery is that it’s code is now hosted by Google. As a result, you don’t need to upload jQuery to your own server, nor do your website’s readers have to download it each time. If they’ve been to one site with the reference to jQuery, it’s automatically cached for use with your site!
Simply add the code within your head tag and you’re off and running with jQuery:
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