Our Favorite jQuery Plugins and Libraries For Spring 2015

Web development is hard and there is much to learn. Developers and designers need to be on top of a lot of emerging technologies and trends. But the community is buzzing with activity and it creates awesome libraries and plugins that can help us do our work. Here are some of our favorites. Not all of them were released this year, but all of them were updated in the last few months and are a great addition to your bookmarks.

1. Animsition

Animsition is a simple and easy jQuery plugin for CSS animated page transitions. Over 50 animations are available such as different fade outs, rotations and flips. Just a friendly tip: use it with moderation! Github.

2. Waves

Waves is a plugin that recreates the on-click ink effect as seen in Google’s Material Design. The effect can be applied to any HTML element – buttons, links, images and more.  Github.

3. Interdimensional

This is an interesting library which allows you to scroll a web page by tilting your smartphone. It obviously doesn’t work on laptops and desktops, but we think it is a novel approach for interacting with the web. Github.

4. Unite Gallery

Unite Gallery is multipurpose JavaScript gallery based on jQuery. It supports images, video and music, and is responsive and touch friendly. It is skinnable and themeable and has a powerful api. Github.

5. Scrollify

Scrollify is a jQuery plugin that assists scrolling and smoothly snaps to sections. Fully configurable and optimised for touch. This plugin is a power steering for your scroll wheel. Github.

6. SweetAlert

SweetAlert is a beautiful replacement for javascript’s alert. It uses smooth CSS transitions and animations for a nice visual experience. It’s also responsive and will look great no matter what you’re using – a desktop computer, smartphone or tablet. Github.

7. Oh Snap

Oh Snap is a simple notification jQuery/Zepto library designed to be used in mobile apps but works just as well on other devices. Github.

8. Tipso

Tipso is a lightweight responsive jQuery tooltip plugin with lots of options for customization. A WordPress version of the plugin is also available. Github.

9. Material Design Preloader

A jQuery plugin that recreates the Material Design preloader (as seen on Gmail’s inbox). Github.

10. Tabulous

Tabulous.js is a cool plugin that helps you create tabbed content with awesome transition when changing between tabs. It can be used with any contents you want and is really simple to use. Github.

11. Vivus

Vivus is a lightweight JavaScript class (with no dependencies) that allows you to animate SVGs, giving them the appearence of being drawn line by line. There are a variety of different animations available, as well as the option to create a custom script to draw your SVG in whatever way you like. Github.

12. Midnight

A jQuery plugin that switches between multiple header designs as you scroll, so you always have a header that looks great with the content below it. Github.

13. Fake Loader

Fake Loader is a lightweight jQuery plugin that helps you create an animated spinner with a fullscreen loading mask to simulate the page preloading effect. Github.

14. Labelauty

A jQuery plugin that styles checkboxes and radio buttons and allows for the content inside labels to change depending on checked/unchecked status. Github.

15. Scrolline

Scrolline is a jQuery plugin which shows a progress indicator near the top of the window, which gives users a hint on how far they’ve scrolled. This is suitable for mobile devices where scroll bars are hidden by default. Github.

16. jQuery Timer

This plugin turns an element on the page into a fully functional, lightweight timer. Easily create callback functions to be executed after a certain duration or repeatedly at an interval. You can also pause and resume. Github.

17. Textures

Textures.js is a Javascript library for creating scalable SVG patterns. It is designed for visualizing and presenting data like maps, and is built on top of d3.js. Github.

18. Gridder

A jQuery plugin that displays a thumbnail grid with expanding previews, similar to the effect seen on Google Images, allowing you to quickly see more details without having to reload the page. Github.

19. Tweet Parser

Correctly parse elements containing tweets and turn URLS, @users & #hashtags into working urls. Github.

20. Zelect

This is lightweight and customizable replacement for the plain <select> element. You can style any aspect of it with simple CSS so that it matches the rest of your web application. Github.

21. JS Grid

JS Grid is a lightweight client-side data grid control based on jQuery. It supports basic grid operations like inserting, filtering, editing, deleting, paging and sorting. Github.

22. Mapael

jQuery Mapael is a jQuery plugin based on raphael.js that allows you to display dynamic vector maps. As seen from the demos, with Mapael, you can display a map of the world with clickable countries and much more. Github.

23. Payform

Payform is a useful plugin that lets you easily create, validate and format credit card forms. Github.