8 awesome JQuery tips and tricks for designers

Who doesn’t like JQuery? This fast and easy to use Javascript framework became very popular in 2008. In the following article, I have compiled a list of 8 absolutely useful JQuery hacks, tips and tricks.

Target blank links

Do you use the target=blank attribute on links? If yes, you might know that XHTML 1.0 Strict don’t allow it. A good solution to this problem should be using JQuery to make links opening in new windows:

$('a[@rel$='external']').click(function(){

  this.target = "_blank";

});
/*

Usage:

<a href="http://www.lepinskidesign.com.br/" rel="external">lepinskidesign.com.br</a>

*/

Get the total number of matched elements

That what I call a very simple, but very useful tip: This will return the number of matched elements:

$('element').size();

Preloading images

When you’re using images in Javascript, a good thing is to preload it before you have to use it. This code will do the job:

jQuery.preloadImages = function()

{

  for(var i = 0; i").attr("src", arguments[i]);

  }

};
// Usage

$.preloadImages("image1.gif", "/path/to/image2.png", "some/image3.jpg");

Detect browser

Although it is better to use CSS conditionnal comments to detect a specific browser and apply some css style, it is a very easy thing to do with JQuery, which can be useful at times.

//A. Target Safari

if( $.browser.safari ) $("#menu li a").css("padding", "1em 1.2em" );
//B. Target anything above IE6

if ($.browser.msie && $.browser.version > 6 ) $("#menu li a").css("padding", "1em 1.8em" );


//C. Target IE6 and below

if ($.browser.msie && $.browser.version <= 6 ) $("#menu li a").css("padding", "1em 1.8em" );


//D. Target Firefox 2 and above

if ($.browser.mozilla && $.browser.version >= "1.8" ) $("#menu li a").css("padding", "1em 1.8em" );

Remove a word in a text

Do you ever wanted to be able to remove words in a text? Note that the following code can be easily modified to replace a word by another.

var el = $('#id');

el.html(el.html().replace(/word/ig, ""));

Columns of equal height

This seems to be a highly-requested hack: How to use two CSS columns, and make them having exactly the same height? Happilly Rob from cssnewbie have the solution.

function equalHeight(group) {

    tallest = 0;

    group.each(function() {

        thisHeight = $(this).height();

        if(thisHeight > tallest) {

            tallest = thisHeight;

        }

    });

    group.height(tallest);

}
/*

Usage:

$(document).ready(function() {

    equalHeight($(".recent-article"));

    equalHeight($(".footer-col"));

});

*/

Source: Equal Height Columns with jQuery

Font resizing

Font Resizing is a very common feature in many modern websites. Here’s how to do it with JQuery.

$(document).ready(function(){

  // Reset Font Size

  var originalFontSize = $('html').css('font-size');

    $(".resetFont").click(function(){

    $('html').css('font-size', originalFontSize);

  });

  // Increase Font Size

  $(".increaseFont").click(function(){

    var currentFontSize = $('html').css('font-size');

    var currentFontSizeNum = parseFloat(currentFontSize, 10);

    var newFontSize = currentFontSizeNum*1.2;

    $('html').css('font-size', newFontSize);

    return false;

  });

  // Decrease Font Size

  $(".decreaseFont").click(function(){

    var currentFontSize = $('html').css('font-size');

    var currentFontSizeNum = parseFloat(currentFontSize, 10);

    var newFontSize = currentFontSizeNum*0.8;

    $('html').css('font-size', newFontSize);

    return false;

  });

});

Source: Text Resizing With jQuery

Disable right-click contextual menu

There’s many Javascript snippets available to disable right-click contextual menu, but JQuery makes things a lot easier:

$(document).ready(function(){

    $(document).bind("contextmenu",function(e){

        return false;

    });

});