> > Hello,

> > I have looked, but could not find a good explanation that tells the
> > difference between jQuery, jQuery UI, and Plugins.  What is the
> > difference between them?

> "jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML
> document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for
> rapid web development."http://jquery.com/

> "jQuery offers a mechanism for adding in methods and functionality, bundled
> as plugins."http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Authoring

> "jQuery UI provides abstractions for low-level interaction and high-level,
> themeable widgets, built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library, that you
> can use to build highly interactive web applications."http://ui.jquery.com/

> jQuery (http://jquery.com/)

> So jQuery is a concise and minimal javascript framework. It covers the
> basics - DOM Manipulation, Events, Ajax, Animations. It does so quite
> nicely, and is rather popular <http://docs.jquery.com/Sites_Using_jQuery>.

> Plugins (http://plugins.jquery.com/)

> jQuery is extensible. Anyone can write code that gives jQuery more than just
> the basics functionality. These are packaged as plugins. In addition to
> including

> jquery.js

> you might also include a plugin file (that you or someone else wrote), such
> as

> jquery.foo.js

> This would typically add a function .foo() which you could call on any
> jQuery object as if that were a built-in basic capability of jQuery. You can
> find a huge number of plugins on

> http://plugins.jquery.com/

> as well as elsewhere on the
> internet<http://www.google.com/search?q=jquery+plugin>.
> People write and release jQuery plugins all the time, because they're easy
> to write and share. They cover things such as menus, rich media
> (audio/video), data handling, cookies, browser detection, layout, form
> validation. Anything people want, really.

> When a plugin becomes so ubiquitous that nearly everyone is including it on
> their page with jquery.js, it can be a candidate for inclusion in jQuery
> core <http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-en/msg/0ca254effd0acd00>. But
> only where it is in demand, makes sense, and still keeps the library
> lightweight, easy to use, etc. That said, jQuery core will never grow beyond
> it's fundamentals (hence the name, core). Enter jQuery UI.

> jQuery UI (http://ui.jquery.com/)

> A couple years back there was a set of quite popular jQuery plugins bundled
> in a package called Interface <http://www.eyecon.ro/interface/>, written by
> Stefan Petre. These offered really great interactions, like drag-and-drop,
> selecting, sorting, resizing; widgets like tooltips, autocomplete,
> accordion. The 1.2 release of jQuery had some API changes that would've
> required changes to Interface, for it to be compatible, but Interface was
> never updated.

> jQuery UI (started by Paul Bakaus) picked up where Interface left off. Many
> people are interested in a complete package/library of jQuery plugins with a
> common/consistent API, complete documentation, testing in all major
> browsers, with which they can build rich web interfaces and/or RIAs (Rich
> Internet Applications). Oh yeah, and they should work well together, be easy
> to use, accessible, extensible, and themeable. Whew.

> > I experimented with jQuery months ago, and
> > don't remember seeing a UI version in the tutorials, is it new?

> jQuery UI is a sister-project of jQuery. The 1.0 release of jQuery UI was
> September 2007. Version 1.5 was released in June 2008. You can get a pretty
> full history (including what went in to each release, and how it matured) on
> the jQuery Blog <http://jquery.com/blog>. The latest stable release is 1.5.2
> and includes

> Interactions
> - Draggables (drag)
> - Droppables (and drop)
> - Resizables
> - Selectables
> - Sortables

> Widgets
> - Accordion
> - Datepicker
> - Dialog
> - Slider
> - Tabs

> Effects
> - blind, bounce, clip, drop down/up/left/right, explode, fold, highlight,
> pulsate, puff, scale, shake, slide down/up/left/right, transfer
> - Color animations
> - Class animations (addClass/removeClass/toggleClass w/Interval)

> Some other notes:

> There is documentation for all of jQuery UI <http://docs.jquery.com/UI>,
> including how to theme each plugin

> jQuery UI is hosted on google's ajax libraries
> api<http://rdworth.org/blog/2008/08/jquery-ui-now-in-googles-ajax-librari...>

> jQuery UI has full theming support for all plugins. The jQuery UI website
> even has an application for getting started building a theme, called
> ThemeRoller <http://www.themeroller.com/>. It gives you a live preview of
> your theme applied to all the widgets as you create it.

> The jQuery UI website has a Download
> Builder<http://ui.jquery.com/download_builder/>which allows you to
> pick and choose just the components you want, and wraps
> them up (with a bow, er min/pack compression options) in one file.

> There are more plugins in the works such as:
> - colorpicker
> - autocomplete
> - progressbar
> - spinner
> - menu
> - toolbar
> - panels
> - splitters
> - tree
> - uploader
> - grid
> - tooltips

> You can follow jQuery and jQuery UI on twitter and/or identica:

> jQueryhttp://twitter.com/jquery<http://identi.ca/jquery>http://identi.ca/jquery

> jQuery UIhttp://twitter.com/jqueryui<http://identi.ca/jqueryui>http://identi.ca/jqueryui

> (both sites use jQuery :)

> > Lastly, is jQuery UI licensed the same way as the original jQuery?

> Yes, jQuery UI (like jQuery) is dual-licensed MIT and GPL. See

> http://jquery-ui.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/MIT-LICENSE.txthttp://jquer...

> meaning you can pick the one that suits you.

> > I'm sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but I didn't see any
> > information in the FAQ or in the support groups.

> We'd love your help. The
> FAQ<http://docs.jquery.com/Frequently_Asked_Questions>(as the rest of
> the documentation website) is a wiki, so feel free to add
> what you've learned.

> Support Groups / Mailing Lists

> Since you mentioned support groups, jQuery has two:

> jQuery Main list, for people using jQuery:http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-en
> jQuery Dev list, for the development of jQuery itself:http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-dev

> and jQuery UI has two as well:

> jQuery UI Main list, for people using jQuery UI:http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui
> jQuery UI Dev list, for the development of jQuery UI itself:http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui-dev

> - Richard

> Richard D. Worthhttp://rdworth.org/