The jQuery UI team has been working for over 9 months on the 1.6 release and during this long process, we’ve deeply re-factored every plugin and introduced a very big shift in how we write markup and styles with the new jQuery UI CSS Framework. Also during that time, the jQuery core library released the new 1.3 version which incorporates a lot of improvements that we wanted to leverage.

We hear ya

We clearly have heard the confusion as these fairly large changes were made between release candidates in the 1.6 development cycle (post 1.6rc2). Based on feedback from the jQuery UI community, we want to address the confusion around compatibility between jQuery 1.2.6 and 1.3 and the jQuery UI library by creating two very distinct releases in the next few weeks:

1.6rc6 plus fixes will become 1.7 (compatible with jQuery 1.3+)

What we are currently calling jQuery UI 1.6rc6 is going to be released as jQuery UI 1.7. This code is built from the ground up to take full advantage of jQuery 1.3 and the new jQuery UI CSS Framework and is different enough to warrant a dot release. After a lot of analysis, we’ve decided that compatibility with both 1.2.6 and 1.3 is not feasible in a single UI release while still having a maintainable and lean codebase, so this version will not be compatible with jQuery 1.2.6 or earlier.

1.6rc2 plus fixes will become 1.6 (compatible with jQuery 1.2.6)

For all those folks still actively using jQuery 1.2.6, we want to provide a legacy release of the jQuery UI library based on 1.6rc2 that ports over as many bug fixes and improvements as possible from more recent code updates to provide a clear, stable foundation that will be fully compatible with jQuery 1.2.6. To avoid any confusion, this version will be called jQuery UI 1.6 final. Since this will be a legacy release, the team will not be actively developing this code once it is finalized. Also, this release will not contain any changes related to the new jQuery UI CSS Framework. It will have the same theming support as jQuery UI 1.5.3.

We understand that this is a fairly large change and welcome input from the community on how to make the upgrade as smooth as we possibly can. A complete upgrade guide will be posted shortly to guide you on a plugin-by-plugin basis to help ease the transition.

Current Release Status

We received a lot of great help testing the latest release candidate, 1.6rc6, and are fixing the final few issues, so that it can be released as soon as it’s ready. A current summary status of the release can always be found on the front page of our Dev and Planning wiki ( http://wiki.jqueryui.com/ ). We are very excited about the quality of this new jQuery UI release because it will serve as a solid foundation that will give us a stable API and let us release more frequently throughout the year with updates and new widgets.

Weekly releases coming

Starting in March we will switch to a weekly release mode. Each week we will alternate between pushing a stable bug fix release (1.7.1, 1.7.2, etc.) and a preview release (alpha, beta, rc) including new plugins and functionality. So each branch will receive an update at most every two weeks. If we need an additional release in-between or we need to add an extra beta or rc, we will do so on a week-to-week basis, adjusting the rest of the roadmap accordingly. Our goal is to work toward a 6-8 week release cycle (2-3 weeks alpha, 2-3 weeks beta, 1-2 weeks rc, then final).

Download builder update

We have pushed a complete update to the Download Builder. It is now fully integrated with ThemeRoller so that you can download a customized jQuery UI library zip including a pre-built or custom theme. We’ve also fixed up some issues that existed with downloading an invalid zip file in IE and also 1.5.3 minified files.

Thank you for your help and support

We want to thank the community for it’s support and encourage your participation in helping us to develop the best UI library on the planet. If you are a developer who is interested in helping us with bug fixing, please feel free to post a message on the ui-development group ( http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui-dev ) and ask how you can help out.

jQuery UI 1.6rc5 is available.

Download jQuery UI 1.6rc5
You can download the entire development bundle directly

http://jquery-ui.googlecode.com/files/jquery.ui-1.6rc5.zip

This includes a default theme, as well as all the test and demo files. Or you can create a customized download of individual components

http://ui.jquery.com/download/

and a custom theme at

http://ui.jquery.com/themeroller

Be sure to grab an updated 1.6rc5 theme, if you got a theme from ThemeRoller in the last two weeks. (Also, for any users of 1.5.3, there is a link on ThemeRoller for downloading legacy themes)

Compatibility with jQuery 1.3
Thank you to the many people that helped test and contribute fixes to make this release happen. We have fixed a lot of issues in the two weeks since rc4 and the most major fix is this release is compatible with jQuery 1.3 (Happy Birthday jQuery) where 1.6rc4 was only compatible with jQuery 1.2.6. From now on, we ask that 1.6rc4 is no longer used for testing. Also, from here forward jQuery UI 1.5.3 will only support jQuery 1.2.6. And jQuery UI 1.6 will only support jQuery 1.3+
Thanks for any help you can provide to ensure this release is ready and fully compatible with jQuery 1.3. Please create a ticket for any issue you find on the jQuery UI bug tracker:

http://ui.jquery.com/bugs (note: requires registration)

and send a note for discussion on the jQuery UI Development mailing list as well:

http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui-dev

The current schedule is to wrap up 1.6 final by the end of next week.

The jQuery UI team has had a busy and productive fall and wanted to give everyone an update on what we’ve been up to.  First off, we’re happy to announce that our team of contributors has grown significantly in the past few months and want to thank everyone for their support. To round out the great group of developers on the core team, new sub teams and team roles have been created, to focus on areas such as evangelism, design, builds, testing, website, and documentation. Most noticeable is the recent activity of the Interaction Design sub team focusing on UI design, widget planning, and theming. To learn more about who’s on the team and what we all like to do, check out the jQuery UI team page. Also, we are pleased to announce that Filament Group is now an official sponsor of jQuery UI, making up most of our Interaction Design team. Thank you.

When’s 1.6 coming?

The 1.6rc3 release is being wrapped up and will be out within a week. Our goal is to have 1.6 final out still in December. We’ve decided to cut back the number of new additions in order to re-factor the existing plugins for improved accessibility, performance, and theming. In this release, the only new plugin will be the determinate progress bar. The autocomplete, colorpicker, and spinner plugins have been moved into a future release (to allow time for further refactoring, not delaying 1.6 any further), while magnifier has been moved into experimental again, soon to be released as external plugin at Paul Bakaus’ homepage (more on that in the next final release announcement). With a better planning process in place now (see below), we’re confident removing plugins from a release candidate won’t happen in the future, and we apologize for any trouble it might have introduced for you.

What’s 1.6 all about?

One of the most exciting changes arriving with the final version of 1.6 is a complete re-factor of the CSS class framework used across all the jQuery UI widgets. This will build on the ideas of the original ThemeRoller tool, but extend the system to be a rich UI class framework that can be used across all plugins, both internal and external. Here is just a partial list of what’s in the works:

• New classes for error, highlight and disabled states
• Extended, sprite-based ThemeRoller icon set
• Class system for adding rounded corners via CSS (Firefox and Webkit, gracefully degrades)
• New ThemeRoller tool with inspector style view
• Theme gallery with voting and user-generated themes
• Improved documentation for generating custom themes and using the class framework

You can learn more about the new ThemeRoller app and class framework on our new wiki.

What are y’all working on?

To keep us organized and make the planning process more transparent to the community, we’ve created a new design and planning wiki at http://jqueryui.pbwiki.com/. On the wiki, we’ve been refining and detailing our processes for growing the team and the project, accepting and reviewing contributions, and prioritizing new plugins into a roadmap. By channeling ideas and decisions made on the jQuery UI Dev google group conversations into the wiki, we hope to provide a single, unified view of our current thinking, so we’re all in sync. To see what we’re up to, a summary of the current development status can always be found at the top of the wiki homepage. (Note: http://docs.jquery.com/UI will continue as the end-user documentation/production wiki for jQuery UI)

How can I help?

One big part of the wiki is collecting a long list of ideas for future plugins that we might want to include in the jQuery UI library. So far, we’ve created a sortable table on the wiki homepage with over 50 plugins with planning information for the highest priority items. Each plugin has a detail page where we can collect best practices, visual designs, sample markup and style, accessibility considerations and track the status of the development. We hope to have a vibrant conversation with the community and engage as many designers and developers in the process, so please feel free to add comments, edit pages, and link to examples on the wiki. We’ve just started the plugin design and specification process so this is a great time to get involved and help us shape the future of jQuery UI.