Those of you who have been around for a while know that in September of last year I published the first issue of the Visual jQuery Magazine. In October, the magazine was also released in French.

The mag had interviews with important jQuery community members (like creator John Resig, plugin editor Dave Cardwell, etc.), articles on jQuery features and implementations, and even a piece or two on alternate Javascript libraries, complete with quality graphics and original art.

The positive response was incredible, and people really seemed to like it. Unfortunately, though I’d initially planned on making the magazine a monthly publication, things fell to the wayside as my schedule got progressively more hectic. Since Issue 1 I’ve found a new job (new then; about eight or nine months old now), moved across the country (NY to CA), and gotten a huge chunk of the way through writing my first book (stay tuned for details!). Clearly, things have been busy.

The lack of Issue 2 has been bugging me since Issue 1, and I’ve decided it’s time to make it happen (this, I admit, is also largely in part to my good friend Rey Bango’s recently renewed effort to push jQuery forward). Thankfully, the magazine’s lead designer and the team of French developers/translators have all expressed an interest in helping make Issue 2 happen, which makes this goal a lot more tangible.

Issue 1 was an experiment, and it went really well. Since it was a first though, it was very much “the Yehuda show.” I’d like Issue 2 to be more of a collaboration of contributors; there are a lot of jQuery topics to explore, and a lot of team member and users with fascinating tales to tell.

As such, I’m putting the word out there. I’m looking for contributions for Issue 2 of Visual jQuery Magazine. Articles can vary in length extensively, from brief three paragraph shorts, to three page features. They can be tutorials, feature articles, interviews and lots of other things I’m sure you’ll all think of. Just a few brief (and somewhat flexible) guidelines:

The article must be in magazine or newspaper format (if, in fact, your submission is a piece of writing — illustrations will also be considered). I’m extremely lax on this, but it should be something you could see being in a magazine.

The article must be about a topic that is timely and pertinent to the jQuery community, with broad appeal.

The article must not be an advertisement (but it may, obviously, feature a plugin you have written if it has broad appeal).

The article must be factually correct.

The magazine staff will edit your article for grammar, space, and style. You will receive an edited copy prior to publication for approval.

The magazine staff will add graphics and other visual elements as appropriate.

Please email a proposal or brief description of your submission before spending a chunk of time working on it; that way we can avoid running out of space and ensure that everything print-worthy gets in. Email submissions and letters to the editor to editor AT visualjquery DOT com.

As I said from the beginning of this project, I think that the magazine has real potential to open up the jQuery world to new users, and hope that by pushing the envelope of community-produced content, we can keep jQuery moving forward in it’s current positive direction. I, for one, I’m really excited about it.

I will also be accepted advertisements, with all proceeds to go to the jQuery project. If you’re interested, please email me!

One of the great aspects of jQuery is its extensibility, as evidenced by the many excellent plugins that have been developed for it. The jQuery team, and the Web team in particular, have been working hard behind the scenes to put together a repository to showcase these plugins.

The new repository comes with a few features that are sure to help users to find what they’re looking for and determine which plugins will best suit their needs. There’s the (jQuery-based) ratings widget to let you know how highly others value each plugin. The ratings are viewable by all, and you can rate them yourself by simply registering on the site with a user name and email address. You’ll also have easier access to change logs, demos, and documentation, as well as bug reporting and feature requests.

There are still a few rough edges to be smoothed out, and the list of plugins on the site is admittedly small so far. We’re requesting that plugin authors post their work to the new plugin repository in the next couple weeks, as we’ll be gradually phasing out the plugins wiki page.

Special thanks to Mike Hostetler for the hours of work he put in to get the repository off to a great start.

Check it out at: http://jquery.com/plugins/

Bertrand Gugger

Last night, Bertrand Gugger, an active member of the jQuery community (toggg on #jquery) and frequent contributor of French jQuery articles and translations, passed away.

He was an active contributor to a number of Open Source projects (English) including PEAR PHP and SPIP (a PHP-based CMS).

His generosity, caring, and humor will be remembered, and missed, by us all.

NOTE The venue for this event has changed! We’re now meeting at the Best Western Bergère Opéra, please change your plans accordingly.

When:
Sunday, June 24, 2007 – 10:30 AM

Where:
Best Western Bergère Opéra
32, Rue Bergère
Paris, ÃŽle-de-France 75009
(Google Maps Directions)

About:
This is a meet up for those that use and are interested in the jQuery JavaScript Library. We’ll be meeting in the lobby of the Best Western Bergère Opéra and then move to a park for a picnic.

John Resig, the creator and lead developer of jQuery, will be attending.

This meet up is being organized by the SPIP (a popular CMS, happily using jQuery) core team.

Register:
If you’re interested in attending this event, please sign up on the event’s Upcoming.org page:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/206745

Update: I have completely refactored jcheat and added substantial new functionality, including a ton of filters that can be used in any combination. Do a gem update and run jcheat -h for full usage details.

I released a new tool, jquery-cheat, that allows you to get information about the jQuery API directly from the command-line. You can get the description of a function, a list of functions in each module, search the list of all function descriptions for a string, get a list of all functions whose name match a string, and some other cool tricks.

Some examples:

# jcheat desc clearForm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name:         clearForm()
Description:  Clears the form data.
              
Details:      Clears the form data.  Takes the following actions on the
              form's input fields:  - input text fields will have their
              'value' property set to the empty string  - select elements
              will have their 'selectedIndex' property set to -1  - checkbox
              and radio inputs will have their 'checked' property set to
              false  - inputs of type submit, button, reset, and hidden will
              *not* be effected  - button elements will *not* be effected
              
Returns:      jQuery
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                   EXAMPLES                                   |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
| Description |
---------------
Clears all forms on the page.

--------
| Code |
--------
$('form').clearForm();

# jcheat namelike $.ajax
$.ajaxTimeout(time) in Ajax
$.ajaxSetup(settings) in Ajax
$.ajax(properties) in Ajax

# jcheat like clear field
clearForm() in Plugins/Form
clearFields() in Plugins/Form

You can grab the tool by doing:

gem install jquery-cheat -y

The -y is so that it automatically includes hpricot, a required dependency.