20 Fresh jQuery Plugins to Enhance your User Interface
The great thing about jQuery is that talented jQuery developers often release new and useful plugins on a regular basis. jQuery plugins are not only easy to implement, but easy to maintain even when used throughout large sites.
In this article, we share with you a list of 20 useful jQuery plugins that were released recently that could help you for your next web project. There are various types of plugins here such as modal windows, image galleries, auto complete for form input, bookmarking functions, preloaders, and more. Enjoy!
1. SimpleModal
This jQuery plugin is a flexible and straightforward way of providing modal window functionality on your site.
2. Panel Gallery
Panel Gallery is an image slideshow with a unique transitional effect. It transitions to another image in a sequential panel manner.
3. Easy Image Gallery
Creating image thumbnail galleries is a snap when you implement the Easy Image Gallery jQuery plugin into your site’s template.
4. nyromModal
nyromModal is a useful jQuery plugin that has a robust set of features and options for you to truly create a customized modal window for your web pages.
5. PikaChoose
PikaChoose is a super lightweight image gallery that’s a cinch to integrate into your website. You can see it in action on the Belvedere Inc website.
6. Image Overlay Plugin
The Image Overlay Plugin lets you present more information about your images. Hovering over an image reveals associated text on top of it.
7. imgAreaSelect
If you’re creating a web app that supports image cropping, this can be the client-side function that lets your users select rectangular areas of an image.
8. SimpleMenu
If you need a simple, lightweight, and barebones JavaScript-based navigation menu, SimpleMenu is the jQuery plugin of your dreams.
9. SlideBox
Do you need a sliding div panel at the top (or bottom) of web pages that can contain more links or your login/sign-in feature? Check out SlideBox.
10. Single Drop Down Menu
Single Drop Down Menu (also known as Single-ddm) is a quick and hassle-free way of implementing multi-level navigation menus that leverage JavaScript.
11. Auto Complete
Are you trying to build a custom search feature for a site? The Auto Complete jQuery plugin can supercharge your form inputs with additional user feature.
12. jQuery Iconize
jQuery Iconize allows you to reduce or expand page elements into an "icon state", providing your web app a user-friendly way of minimizing page objects.
13. Inline Text Edit
Web developers looking to provide users with a basic in-page text editor should take a look at the Inline Text Edit jQuery plugin.
14. PfeLoader
This jQuery plugin allows you to display a progress bar for page components that are being downloaded – useful for image galleries that share large-scale photos.
15. Growl
Growl allows you to present DOM-inserted elements (divs by default) that are perfect for user warnings, messages, and status update notifications.
16. jQuery Bookmark
Sharing your content in social news and networking sites requires little else than implementing the jQuery Bookmark plugin.
17. Mouse Over Animation for Text
MOAText is a spiffy jQuery plugin for giving you the ability to animate HTML text triggered when the mouse cursor hovers over them.
18. OverScroll
OverScroll lets you move around by holding down a mouse button and moving it, similar to how the iPhone allows you to move around a screen by finger gestures.
19. jQDialog
jQDialog is a jQuery plugin for exhibiting unobtrusive modal windows for in-page notifications that can replace the alert(), prompt(), and confirm() JavaScript functions.
20. Uploadify
Uploadify is a package written on top of jQuery that gives you both the client-side and server-side functionality you’ll need to handle single-file and multi-file uploads.
Can you suggest more plugins that we’ve overlooked? Have you used any of the plugins above? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments!
Related Content
- Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery
- 40 Exceptional jQuery Interface Techniques and Tutorials
- 14 jQuery Plugins for Working with Images
- Related categories: JavaScript and User Interface
About the Author
34 Comments
Ary Mega
September 9th, 2009
Very fresh — thanks for this.
Leoganda
September 9th, 2009
Great collections! Thanks
Bryan Regencia
September 9th, 2009
Nice plugins. I will surely use some of these in my next projects. Thanks for sharing.
Josh
September 9th, 2009
Great roundup, definitely some useful plugins on this list. I’ll be checking out SimpleModal and Growl for sure!
Mars
September 10th, 2009
right on time, i was looking for a web gallery script.
Ryan
September 10th, 2009
Fantastic list of resources here. I am liking the Pikachoose gallery.Looks useful for what i am wanting to achieve.
Thanks again. Great blog.
Tom
September 10th, 2009
Very good, I already use SimpleModal boxes for my website but nyromModal looks interesting
Webjohn01
September 10th, 2009
It was a great article showcasing the different JQuery plugins for better user experience. I like very much the Panel Gallery it is a good choice over creating it in Adobe Flash.
Keep posting!
-Webjohn01
evertt de sousa
September 10th, 2009
wow very nice this post
Thanks
claudio
September 10th, 2009
Very useful, thanks.
Claudio.
bill
September 10th, 2009
coll list, that panel gallery will come in handy
AtiKuSDesign
September 10th, 2009
I love writing jQuery. I haven’t needed to use it in ages though. If only i had time for numerous personal projects where I could include it just to try out new techniques.
One day…
Ryan Sarmast
September 10th, 2009
Wonderful list, the SimpleModal is awesome.
Amber Weinberg
September 10th, 2009
Great list. Growl is one of my favs up there.
xiangjian
September 10th, 2009
this is beautiful
Eric Martin
September 10th, 2009
Great list – thanks for including SimpleModal!
Roberto
September 11th, 2009
Great ideas. Thanks.
cypherbox
September 11th, 2009
Nice jQuery compilation. Very useful for future projects. =)
rory
September 11th, 2009
Such a good resource page, I’m gonna bookmark this beauty. Don’t really know much about JQuery, but some of the examples here are awesome and would be really handy for my web design.
I’ll have to get my learning hat on…
Thanks for the knowledge.
Tim
September 17th, 2009
These are great thanks for putting this together!
Eric Clemmons
September 18th, 2009
Here’s a jQuery plugin I created to enable “endless scroll” on clients’ blogs:
http://blog.uxdriven.com/2009/09/16/de-pagify-endless-scroll-jquery-plugin/
We made the footer of the page fixed to the bottom of the window so nothing gets covered by the continuous stream of content.
TopFreewareDownload.com
October 16th, 2009
Very good ….
BigM75
January 14th, 2010
so cool plugins more please thanks
builder london
April 22nd, 2010
Awesome collection.
Thanks!
Franz
May 7th, 2010
awesome list – thumbs up!
may I suggest another tool for your list? A good tool I use is Likno Web Modal Windows Builder (jQuery modal windows) – its very easy to use.
You can find it at:
http://www.likno.com/jquery-modal-windows/index.php
they also have a tool for tooltips…
Wolfram
December 15th, 2010
I had a pretty good run with processing.js, a port of the Processing Visualization Language by John Resig (jQuery) himself.
Rudi Roux
January 28th, 2011
Thanks for these plugins. Just what i was looking for.
farsweb
March 10th, 2011
wow nice post thanks , very well
PNt
March 13th, 2011
Informative… !!!
Achut
June 7th, 2011
Nice artical but some artical links are broken…….
Jensen Intelli
July 30th, 2011
“Pikachoose” and “Panel” are the effects I was looking for for this site. Not entirely new, but certainly modded up enough.
La Boite Digitale
August 18th, 2011
great, i like this issue, thank you
Raf Iwo
August 25th, 2011
great set, thanks.
Niveditha
October 30th, 2011
Hi, pls suggest a plugin for footer menu which has several links under each heading. The Slide Box plugin here is not opening. Its urgent!
Thanks
Leave a Comment