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I've used a half dozen modal window plug-ins for jQuery and most have pretty extensive features and options. Somehow I tend to always come back to jQuery UI's dialog. They've done a pretty fair job at creating a versatile and customizable modal window feature. Any container can be turned into a modal window with a simple .dialog() method chained on. The problem that I ran into recently is that when you launch the dialog window, the only way to close is by doing one of the following:

• Clicking the close button in the top right.
• Pressing the "escape" button (if the dialog was configured to close on escape).

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As I arrived at the airport on the morning of June 18th, 2010, I admittedly was not exactly sure what to expect of Dee Sadler's upcoming designer/developer workflow conference. It was still quite a mystery where this idea came from, and how it would play out. Several months prior, I was highly encouraged by a good friend (Doug Boude) to volunteer to speak. With the exception of our local CFUG meetings, I've never spoken at any other event. Doug and I batted around a few ideas before finally settling on the idea of a two part session — Part I - JavaScript Libraries for Designers, and Part II - JavaScript Libraries for Developers (but more on that later).

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I was recently asked for some jQuery help by a good friend. The task at hand: Hide all inputs in a given form and display their values in a span. My first thought was how easy this was going to be using just a few lines of jQuery, and then I began to analyze why this would make a great blog entry. I've written literally hundreds of content management applications. I typically build a form to handle both the addition and editing of records from my database. I then create a "view detail" mode of some sort. I've always disliked the somewhat redundant task of creating another screen containing the same data, only not in form fields. Using jQuery, we could absolutely simplify this process and eliminate the mundane task of creating redundant "modes" for an application.

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Most websites these days are pretty cut and dry. The only interaction that occurs is when a link is clicked or a form is submitted. On occasion you may see a navigation item change when the mouse "rolls over" it. The web doesn't have to be this boring though! In the past you had to jump through hoops to add more interaction to your website, but with jQuery, it's finally a piece of cake to handle actions associated with specific events..

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One of the most important features of jQuery is finding and modifying DOM (document object model) elements. This certainly is not anything earth-shattering, and while raw JavaScript can do this without jQuery, it's the simplistic form in which jQuery does it that makes it so appealing. Finding elements may not sound to exciting, but without a solid knowledge of how jQuery can traverse your HTML document and find specific elements, you won't be able to perform animations, AJAX interactions, or handle events. We are going to explore a few of my favorite techniques to traverse the HTML document, and modify items on the fly.

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