jQuery 1.7 Released

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jQuery 1.7 is ready for download! You can get the code from the jQuery CDN:

This new release should also be available on the Google and Microsoft CDNs within a day or two.

Thanks to your help in testing and reporting bugs during the beta period, we believe we have a solid, stable release. If you do find problems, file a bug and be sure to choose jQuery 1.7 in the version selection. Also be sure to provide a jsFiddle test case so we can quickly analyze the problem.

What’s New in jQuery 1.7

The Version 1.7 tag at the API site is a great way to get up to speed with the new things in this release. Here’s a rundown of the big items in 1.7 and some things not yet mentioned in the API docs.

New Event APIs: .on() and .off()

The new .on() and .off() APIs unify all the ways of attaching events to a document in jQuery — and they’re shorter to type!

$(elements).on( events [, selector] [, data] , handler );
$(elements).off( [ events ] [, selector] [, handler] );

When a selector is provided, .on() is similar to .delegate() in that it attaches a delegated event handler, filtered by the selector. When the selector is omitted or null the call is like .bind(). There is one ambiguous case: If the data argument is a string, you must provide either a selector string or null so that the data isn’t mistaken as a selector. Pass an object for data and you’ll never have to worry about special cases.

All the existing event binding methods (and their corresponding unbinding methods) are still there in 1.7, but we recommend that you use .on() for any new jQuery project where you know version 1.7 or higher is in use. Here are some examples of mapping between the old and new API calls:

$('a').bind('click', myHandler);
$('a').on('click', myHandler);

$('form').bind('submit', { val: 42 }, fn);
$('form').on('submit', { val: 42 }, fn);

$(window).unbind('scroll.myPlugin');
$(window).off('scroll.myPlugin');

$('.comment').delegate('a.add', 'click', addNew);
$('.comment').on('click', 'a.add', addNew);

$('.dialog').undelegate('a', 'click.myDlg');
$('.dialog').off('click.myDlg', 'a');

$('a').live('click', fn);
$(document).on('click', 'a', fn);

$('a').die('click');
$(document).off('click', 'a');

Improved Performance on Delegated Events

Event delegation has become increasingly important as size and complexity of pages grow. Application frameworks such as Backbone, JavaScriptMVC, and Sproutcore make heavy use of event delegation. With that in mind, jQuery 1.7 event handling was refactored with an eye to making delegated events much faster, especially for the most common cases.

To optimize the code for the most commonly used forms of selectors, we examined a cross-section of code from Google Codesearch. Nearly two-thirds of the selectors used in .live() and .delegate() method calls were in the form tag#id.class where one or more of tag, id, or class were used. By parsing those simple selectors in JavaScript at the time the event was attached, we were able to outperform even the browser’s native-code implementations of matchesSelector during event delivery. For more complex selectors we still use the Sizzle engine, so all existing code should continue to work.

The final result is that delegated events are delivered in about half the time they took in 1.6.4:

Better Support for HTML5 in IE6/7/8

Anyone who has tried to use the new HTML5 tags such as <section> has no doubt run across the problem that IE 6/7/8 not only don’t understand these tags, they actually remove them from the document. With jQuery 1.7 we built in support for using HTML5 tags in older IEs with methods like .html(). This support is on par with what previously required innerShiv. You must still include html5shiv (or Modernizr) in the head of your document in older IEs for HTML5 tag support. For more background, see The Story of the HTML5 Shiv.

Toggling Animations Work Intuitively

In previous versions of jQuery, toggling animations such as .slideToggle() or .fadeToggle() would not work properly when animations were stacked on each other and a previous animation was terminated with .stop(). This has been fixed in 1.7 so that the animation system remembers the elements’ initial values and resets them in the case where a toggled animation is terminated prematurely.

Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD)

jQuery now supports the AMD API. Note that jQuery 1.7 is not a script loader itself; it cooperates with AMD-compliant loaders such as RequireJS or curl.js so it can be loaded dynamically and the ready event can be controlled by the loader. Now an AMD-compliant loader can load an unmodified version of jQuery 1.7 from a CDN such as Google’s or Microsoft’s. Many thanks to James Burke (@jrburke) for submitting the patch and unit tests, then waiting patiently for us to incorporate it.

jQuery.Deferred

The jQuery.Deferred object has been extended with new progress handlers and notification methods that call those handlers. This allows you to asynchronously notify listeners of progress in a request without resolving or rejecting the request. In addition, there is a new state() method that returns the current state of the Deferred; it’s primarily useful for debugging.

Deferreds are now implemented using a new jQuery.Callbacks feature, a generalized way of queueing and triggering a series of handlers. This feature may be of interest to plugin writers, although Deferreds and the event subsystem provide a higher-level interface for this type of functionality.

jQuery.isNumeric()

Inside jQuery we’ve found several situations where we need to know if an argument is numeric, or would be successfully converted to a number if it is some other type. We decided to write and document jQuery.isNumeric() since it’s a useful utility. Pass it an argument of any type and it returns true or false as appropriate.

Removed Features

event.layerX and event.layerY: We have removed these non-standard properties in version 1.7. Although we normally would have gone through a deprecation notice period for these, Chrome version 16 generates a flood of console warning messages on the page. Because of this, we decided to remove them immediately. On platforms that still support these properties, they are available through event.originalEvent.layerX and event.originalEvent.layerY.

jQuery.isNaN(): This undocumented utility function has been removed. It was confusing because it appropriated the name of a built-in JavaScript function but did not have the same semantics. The new jQuery.isNumeric() serves a similar purpose, but has the benefit of being documented and supported. Despite jQuery.isNaN() being undocumented, several projects on Github were using it. We have contacted them and asked that they use jQuery.isNumeric() or some other solution.

jQuery.event.proxy(): This undocumented and deprecated method has been removed. Users should be calling the documented jQuery.proxy method instead.

The jQuery Team, and Your Part

I want to recognize the incredible work of our regular team contributors in getting this release out the door, especially Timmy Willison (timmywil on Github), Corey Frang (gnarf), Rick Waldron (rwldrn), and Julian Aubourg (jaubourg). Karl Swedberg (kswedberg) and Addy Osmani (addyosmani) worked hard on getting the new documentation into shape on the API site. Also, thanks to Mike Sherov (mikesherov), a greenhorn contributor who has already created patches for several tricky bugs. Many thanks to all the others who reported bugs, submitted pull requests, reviewed commits, and in other ways made sure we did the best job we possibly could.

Still, we can always use more help, and that is where you can contribute. The simplest and most important thing you can do is occasionally test our work-in-progress against your code and your expectations. It’s always located at http://code.jquery.com/jquery-git.js and a fresh copy is built each time a new commit is made to our master branch at github.com. If you find a bug in a final release, test against jquery-git.js to see if it’s already been fixed. It’s easy as pie since jsFiddle.net offers an option to test your code with the jquery-git.js file as “jQuery (edge)”.

If you’d like to do more, we’d be glad to have you pitch in! We’ve written a document that can get you started with the process, and one or more of us are generally available in the #jquery-dev channel on IRC if you need more help or information.

jQuery 1.7 Change Log

The current change log of the 1.7 release.

Ajax

  • #9399: Deprecate jqXHR.success and jqXHR.error

Attributes

  • #5479: removeAttr: remove multiple attributes
  • #6743: map enctype to encoding, depending on browser
  • #10176: Injected script tag is evaluated twice
  • #10278: checkboxEl.attr(‘checked’) returns stale value after checkboxEl.click()
  • #10429: IE7 – invalid procedure call or argument when calling removeAttr(‘contenteditable’);
  • #10514: removeAttr does not remove the class attribute in IE6/7

Core

  • #6485: Solution for HTML5 in IE
  • #7102: Register jQuery as a CommonjS async module
  • #9453: $.inArray does not support fromIndex
  • #10478: Switch jQuery.isNaN to jQuery.isNumeric

Css

  • #10267: IE8 and window is(‘:visible’) crashes

Data

  • #7323: Allow removing multiple data keys at once with $.fn.removeData
  • #8909: $(element).data() will scan all attributes more than needed.
  • #8921: jQuery private data should stay private

Deferred

  • #8856: Request: deferred.isUnresolved()
  • #9033: try{ } finally{ } error in IE8
  • #9398: Proposal for Improved Deferreds

Dimensions

  • #9434: .outerWidth()/.outerHeight()/.innerWidth()/.innerHeight() should work on window and document

Effects

  • #5684: Effects: exception in animation callback causes endless loop
  • #6150: .stop sometimes doesn’t clear .delay
  • #6641: Calling stop() within animation finished callback causes other animations to freeze
  • #8685: Animations should keep track of animation state in order to properly address stacked animations
  • #9280: Allow multiple effect queues for animate()
  • #9548: animate does not work with fill-opacity css property for svg elements
  • #10445: Setting queue to true causes an error
  • #10497: .stop should allow choosing which queue to stop
  • #10622: .show() does not properly restore CSS-set “display” value

Event

  • #3368: event.metaKey should be assigned to event.ctrlKey on Non-Mac only
  • #6170: jQuery(window).scroll(); causes IE* to scroll to 0,0
  • #6319: Regression: stopPropagation inside change handlers in IE is incorrectly applied to keydown event
  • #6386: support data argument for live events via “event.special.live.add”
  • #6593: IE8: DOM 0 event handler called twice when a separate handler is attached via jQuery
  • #6667: submit event doesn’t delegate in IE* under certain conditions
  • #6903: special events need a way to determine whether they are being bound with .bind vs .live/.delegate
  • #6942: JQuery.event.fix causes unnecessary reflows in IE when handling key events
  • #7139: “hover” event alias should work for .bind as well as .live
  • #7161: Submit event on a form element not unbound properly in IE
  • #7444: Submitting form with “Enter” instead of button click on ie8 or ie7 triggers live submit event twice.
  • #8157: Focusing an already focused text field will prevent the change event from firing in IE
  • #8728: Event ‘mouseenter’ not firing when the element being left is removed on leaving
  • #8789: Meta: Event Property Hooks
  • #8858: Special events – _default method doesn’t have access to the `data` argument of the trigger method
  • #8866: IE8 input[type=file] delegated change event files only on blur
  • #8982: bind(“unload someOther”) => on unload, handler is not executed only once.
  • #9069: when hover over a child of an element, mouseleave fires when using live or delegate
  • #9279: delegate() bind does not handle mouseover/mouseout and mouseenter/mouseout correctly for selected elements
  • #9393: Unify and DRY out event system
  • #9593: Delegated submit event is not instanceof jQuery.Event in IE
  • #9724: Infinite loop in trigger function when window.parentNode is a DOM element
  • #9901: event.handleObj.namespace incorrect when using .delegate
  • #9933: jQuery.fn.toggle() should store state in private data object
  • #9951: Wrong order in .trigger() when DOM is modified in a handler
  • #10375: Do not include `type` in jQuery.event.props
  • #10438: Rename jQuery.event.propHooks => .fixHooks
  • #10468: Remove deprecated jQuery.event.guid and jQuery.event.proxy
  • #10489: Disconnected elements bubble to window on .trigger()
  • #10531: Consider removing layerX and layerY from $.event.props
  • #10563: jQuery.Event no longer contains the element that matched the selector in event delegation.
  • #10567: Delegated events incorrectly match class names
  • #10575: Breaking changes in live event propagation between 1.6.4 and 1.7rc1
  • #10576: jQuery1.7rc1 and jQueryMobile1.0rc2 – IE gets error in jqm triggerCustomEvent method

Manipulation

  • #6782: carefully allow more strings to use innerHTML
  • #7037: Duplicate mouseover and mouseout events added to cloned element.
  • #10501: HTML5 element “innerShiv” inconsistent across html()/append()

Misc

  • #10420: MouseWheel
  • #10553: Further reduction of minimal license header

Selector

  • #3144: Inconsistent cross-browser results from .text() method
  • #5637: Boolean (and Empty) Attribute Selectors Fail
  • #6863: faster getText
  • #7128: attribute selector is inconsistent between qSA and Sizzle due to use of DOM properties
  • #8539: Sizzle cache collision in browsers without querySelectorAll
  • #9261: Has Attribute not working in filter/children/siblings
  • #9570: Selector $(‘form[name=”..”]’) returns zero elements in IE8 under some conditions
  • #10178: $(window).is(“a”) >> Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method ‘toLowerCase’ of undefined
  • #10315: Sizzle ignores seed argument when using positional selectors
  • #10562: siblings method returns unexpected elements when using Sizzle-invoking pseudo-selectors

Support

  • #5145: jQuery.support.opacity = false in the Chrome browser
  • #6809:

    62 thoughts on “jQuery 1.7 Released”

    2. Clifton King on said:

      Nice work! Is there a way to get 4xx / 5xx XHR responses to still parse JSON such that {error: “File size must be less than 10MB”} doesn’t throw an error? That’s something that’s always truly bothered me about jQuery’s AJAX handling.

    5. John Strickler on said:

      I truly dislike the new .on() method. Where .bind() and delegate() has a clear indication to which element actually receives the event action, now I have to look at the parameters of .on() to tell if the event is being delegated to a different element… not cool… not cool at all.

    6. dmethvin on said:

      @John Strickler
      >Where .bind() and delegate() has a clear indication to which element actually receives the event action…

      Actually .delegate() and .on() have the same parameters and semantics, it’s just that .on() always has the event first for consistency.

    7. John Strickler on said:

      @dmethvin

      That’s not what I mean, I know that delegate() and on() are very similar.

      When I see delegate() I know 100% that its event delegation.

      When I see on(), I must look to see if another string has been passed as a parameter to know that it’s being delegated.

      This is going to be the cause of many mistakes for beginners and headaches for even the intermediate jQuery developers.

    19. Bart Verkoeijen on said:

      Awesome! But err… maybe add a link to some ‘Release Notes’ on the front-page? It took me a Google search to find this page… –> What’s new in jQuery 1.7.

    24. Christiaan Veeningen on said:

      Thanks team and contributors, you have achieved a big performance improvement with the delegated events. Proves that there is still room left for enhancement.

      Keep up the good work!

    30. Gert on said:

      $.isNumeric() is a nice addition. – I ran into problems with indentifying numbers if also a JavaScript Date object could be an alternative.
      Maybe it’s obvious but a Date object seems to resolve into milliseconds, therefore $.isNumeric(new Date()) is also TRUE (which was not intended in my case).

    37. Chris on said:

      Thanks for isNumeric() I’ve always hated isNaN it’s non-intuitive and always have to say Is Not A Number to myself when thinking through logic.

    38. Uwe on said:

      You guy’s really rock. I’m speachless each new version that you manage to put so much elegant design/architecture and functionality in such few code.

    41. Nick on said:

      Great work! I always love looking at the performance charts for new jQuery versions.

      However, I noticed that the animation functions don’t seem to be working properly anymore. You can see it on the animate() page on this site:
      http://api.jquery.com/animate/

      On the first demo, the one that says “Hello!”, the box expands only to fit the letters “Hel” on both Chrome (Comodo Dragon v15.0.3.0) and Firefox (v8.0) on Windows 7 Home x64. On Firefox, after the animation has completed, the remaining letters blink into view, but they’re over and outside of the containing div.

      I noticed that some new animation features were introduced with this version of jQuery and was wondering if it was a known issue? I may have overlooked something.

      Thank you, and keep up the outstanding work.

    45. r043v on said:

      great work jQuery team !

      i really wait long time for the initial size being used on toggle animate, this will save me some hours now

      Nick > as i can see in animate demo, this is width 70% so, seem work nice

      $(“#go”).click(function(){
      $(“#block”).animate({
      width: “70%”,
      …
      }, 1500 );
      });

    47. Boomer on said:

      I’m also having an issue with the .animate() function converting % to px as @Nick was saying.
      This is both in Chrome and Firefox.

    48. jiki on said:

      @John Strickler
      >Where .bind() and delegate() has a clear indication to which element actually receives the event action…

      I understand and agree in every way. When the bind() and delegate() are self-explanatory, the on() requires me to browse its arguments to determine all the characteristics.

      Such generalization seams to me unusual (in jQuery). Internal implementation is ok, but the clear multiple-method usage should stay, I’d say.

      Will you keep the former methods, please?

    49. Matt Stevens on said:

      Why does Google’s return an “Expires” header that is the same as the time the request was made? when with 1.6.4 they return one that is a year in the future.

    50. Jd McKinstry on said:

      Thanks for all you guys do! If I could ask for anything at this point it would be 1 simple thing and 1 annoying thing.
      1.) Simple Thing – add somthing like “myURL” (my own work use plugin) to the api that alows for quick, jQuery style calls to the site url (exp. $.myURL(“index”, “test”, “site”), would produce http://thedomain.com/index.php/test/site)
      2.) More IE support. Of course, I dont support IE and I hate it personally, but my work requires me to try and make our sites and software compatible, and jQuery always throws a half dozen errors in v7-9 of IE (altho this update throws far less in 9, but still need support for 7). It forces me to have to write more than i care to in work-arounds and “alternate” functions.

      Anyway, back to the Thanks, and this library is ****ing awsome!