The document discusses lessons learned from examining popular jQuery plugins. It summarizes 30 top plugins, describing why each was created and how it grew. Key takeaways are that authors build plugins to make something better, for fun/exploration, or client needs. Managing features and user feedback is challenging. The best plugins have great demos, documentation, browser support testing, and are fun. The author is available for questions.
42. “I built this plugin just to scratch an itch. I
needed a masked input for a project I was
working on and I wasn't happy with the
current offerings”
Josh
43. “The only place I've ever really talked about it was on the
jQuery mailing list”
44. “Several people have submitted patches and bug
reports. When I see something that I feel like I
might use, then I'll implement it or roll a patch in.”
63. “I decided to create a tree view after
spending countless hours in searching for a
tree that met all the requirements for a
web-based CMS I was creating” Ivan
72. “I added a dedicated site and an account at
uservoice ... there are also many requests which I'm
not going to follow, as they deviated too much from
the original purpose of the plugin.”
84. “Principally for fun and exploration purpose.”
“[there is a] universally accepted form and
behavior [of calendars] while there is no such
thing for a time picker.”
Maxime Haineault
85. “I posted a link on reddit and woke up the next
morning to see that my submission had taken off
quite well, enough to crash my VPS and down my
site overnight.”
86. “.. when other programmers send me patches, I
always commit them as soon as I can.”
87. “The most enriching part was probably learning
how to deal with many ‘willing’ contributors. I
learned that often hell is paved with good
intentions, but I also learned how to manage hell.”
95. “The validation plugin is the only one
I've wrote from scratch, the others, like
Tooltip, Accordion and Autocomplete,
started with some code from someone
else, usually where someone abandoned
his plugin.”
Jörn