Tocquigny

Yesterday…
I got the chance to build a real-world project with jQueryMobile alpha 3 earlier this year, and I’m quite excited about the future of this product. jQueryMobile framework allows you to quickly create a single web application that will work on all popular smart phones and tablet devices using very simple HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery code. The project wasn’t completely without frustration. Our initial design called for static headers and footers, and while version A3 did have this feature, it was too buggy to use. The other frustration was trying to deviate from the jQueryMobile default styling. We wanted to create a unique design and style of our own, so the first obstacle for me was to craft a CSS reset that would allow me to have more of a blank slate to implement our design. What I’d really like to see is a CSS separation into functional styling and visual styling to make it easy to get creative with the design. Frustrations aside, jQueryMobile was very simple to implement and integrate with our content management system, Expression Engine. It was incredibly easy to add swipe navigations, custom content on device rotation and sliding page transitions. See the project at http://m.tocquigny.com

Today…
This week, version A4 is out. There were many fixes, but a couple of key updates included greatly improved floating headers and footers and Windows Phone 7 support. Upgrading for us was a simple case of swapping out JS and CSS files, but I would recommend reading the documentation to see if the features you use have been changed in this release.

Tomorrow…
If you aren’t following @jquerymobile on Twitter, then take the time to add them. Following them on Twitter will give you a better idea where they are currently in their coding process and where they are headed. jQueryMobile beta will be bringing us a much more stable and constant interaction between mobile platforms and an even broader set of supported mobile devices. I’m really looking forward to where the jQueryMobile team will bring us by the time version 1.0 is released. My wish list would contain simple hooks for premium device features such as location, gyroscope and multi-touch, and easy device targeting.

Conclusion…
jQueryMobile is already a great product today and has a lot of potential for tomorrow and in the future. Check it out http://www.jquerymobile.com