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JQuery UI vs. Scriptaculous

Posted by Tim On September - 10 - 2009

scriptaculous vs jquery uiDoll up your website with great effects and widgets by using JQuery UI or Script.aculo.us. It is becoming easier and easier these days to impliment all sorts of effects to your site with just a few lines of code.  One question many people have is which one of these interfaces reigns supreme over the other? The answer is not really that simple considering how many different flavors of designers, code monkeys, and developers there are today.

There has always been a huge argument over the file size when using any plugin… “In the left corner weighing in at 450.5KB is JQuery UI! In the right corner weighing in at 621KB is Scriptaculous!”. It does not seem like that big of a difference, I mean we are only talking about 17oKB difference between the two.  If we were to minimize both of these files and enable file compression on our servers I doubt you could even notice a difference on a good 56KB modem connection. So what are the benefits of using one over another?

Round 1: Effects

Visual appeal is almost as vital as functionality these days. Even if your site functions better than most you still need the eye candy to attract and retain visitors. These two APIs go head to head when it comes to styling your page.

Effect JQuery UI Scriptaculous
Appear YES
Blind YES YES
Bounce YES
Drop YES YES
Explode YES
Fade YES
Fold YES YES
Grow YES
Highlight YES YES
Morph YES
Move YES
Opacity YES
Effect JQuery UI Scriptaculous
Parallel YES
Puff YES YES
Pulsate YES YES
Scale YES YES
ScrollTo YES
Shake YES YES
Shrink YES
Slide YES YES
Squish YES
Transfer YES
Tween YES

Scriptaculous wins round 1 hands down with the most available effects.

Round 2: Implimentation

We will compare how a few of the similar effects are called as well as additional functionality such as parametrization.
Effect Call: JQuery UI

$("#effect").show(selectedEffect,options,500,callback);

Effect Call: Scriptaculous

Effect.selectedEffect(‘id_of_element’, { options });

The call to run the effect is very similar on both of these API’s. The code required to call an effect is also similar in length. Let’s take a look at the options available when running an effect.
Effect Blind Options: JQuery UI

Speed : Speed of the effect
Callback: Something to execute after the effect

Effect Blind Options: Scriptaculous

scaleX, scaleY, scaleContent, scaleFromCenter, scaleMode, scaleFrom, scaleTo: All scaling options
duration: Length of effect

On one hand JQuery allows for a callback, in the other you can scale with Scriptaculous. This round comes down to user preference, if you are looking for more options for your chosen effect then Scriptaculous wins, if you are looking for callback functionality then JQuery UI wins.

The result of this round: Draw

Round 3: The Add Ons

JQuery UI has Widgets and Interactions, Scriptaculous has Behaviors and Controls. Contained within these two areas we have things such as: draggables, droppables, sortables, sliders, progress bars, Ajax controls, and more. Jquery UI has a great interface in which you can edit themes which will pump out the required code to implement, Scriptaculous does not have this. When we talk about Ajax controls Scriptaculous has several features available where the JQuery UI has none.

The overall comparison of the add ons is rather even and it comes down to what the user desires again. It would be great to have the functionality of both combined into one.

Result of this round: Draw

The Winner Is….

Overall I would call Scriptaculous the winner, I personally beleive it is far ahead of JQuery UI as far as options and effects. While both of these are great tools to use you still have to pick and choose the effects or features you want and the ones you can live without.

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About Me

I am an independent web developer and webmaster of many sites. The main goal of Script Perfect is to provide answers to some of the hard to find questions when it comes to website design and coding.

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