Introducing @Wijmo, a feature-packed @jQueryUI based widget library

Introducing Wijmo, a feature-packed jQueryUI based widget library:
Lately I have been evaluating a few JavaScript based UI libraries for both my projects at work and to use for a new version of the bike climbs site called 39x27.com: it was quite nice to see that almost all component vendors are now embracing, some more than others, JavaScript together with the more traditional Web Controls for ASP.NET Web Forms.

In this post I’m going to briefly cover the reasons why I ended up choosing Wijmo, and then I’m giving a quick introduction on the set of widgets available.

Why Wijmo?

My first, and only strict requirement was that it had to be based on jQuery: everybody in my team knows it, it is the more used JavaScript library, so new developers and contractors coming are likely to know it, and ASP.NET MVC and the ASP.NET Single Page Application depends on it (see, ASP.NET MVC validation, Knockout.js, upshot.js). That excluded libraries like ExtJS.
All the buzz lately is about KendoUI, a jQuery-based UI widget library developed by Telerik, so it was the first library I looked at: it’s based on jQuery, and is available also with a OSS license (GPLv3). It has lots of widgets, both for web UI element and for drawing charts and they are developing also some mobile UI controls. And it’s use feels natural, looks like jQueryUI: you create a HTML element, you select it via jQuery and then enhance it via a KendoUI specific JavaScript function.
What I didn’t like is that they reinvented the wheel: one line

Tooltip #JQuery Tools, Best 100 !

One of the most important things when evaluating a website is realize if it offers enough hints and solutions to be found by the audience their navigation across the entire page, think of it as a sailor who needs to see the beacon’s light while approaching to the shore, there’s no way that the sailor will find the city’s Major waiting and guiding him to reach the dock, not even the sheriff will have time for that, but the beacon will always be there to enlighten the sailor’s way.

This showcase reunites the most important and useful tooltip scripts that can be easily implemented on your site. From AJAX and JavaScript solutions to some lite CSS and jQuery applications, you will find the nicest and well executed tooltip scripts and then check if any of these can fit to your needs.

Icon by Iconshock.

Background and features

Tooltips are among the most common graphical user interface elements, their functionality is strictly connected to the cursor behavior, showing up the tooltip after a roll over, roll out or click action. Since the era of Windows 95, tooltips were introduced to aid the user expand the information regarding the element that they were looking into but without having to display it all the time on the screen. A clear example of a tooltip is when you scroll over the eraser icon in Photoshop, a tooltip with the words “eraser tool” will show up, informing the user that this icon is affirmatively meant to be used for erasing elements within a Photoshop file.

Tooltips are extremely useful when the person is exploring for the first time a videogame, a website, an application or a program, because they make the user experience way much easier without disturbing him severely. Another use of tooltips is when you have large lists of elements and you don’t want to utilize larger images that will slow down y