Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript, 6th Edition

Chapter 23. Introduction to jQuery Mobile

Now that you’ve realized the time you can save and the tremendous power you can harness from jQuery, as discussed in Chapter 22, I think you’ll be delighted to learn that you can do even more with the jQuery Mobile library.

Created to complement jQuery, jQuery Mobile requires you to include both jQuery and jQuery Mobile in a web page (along with a CSS file and accompanying images you will also need) to transform it into a fully interactive experience when viewed on phones and other mobile devices.

The jQuery Mobile library enables you to adapt ordinary web pages to become mobile web pages using a technique called progressive enhancement (in which basic browser features are made to display well first, and then more and more functionality is added when more capability is encountered within a browser). It also features what is called responsive web design (in which web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes).

The point of this chapter isn’t to teach you absolutely everything there is to know about jQuery Mobile—that could take up a whole book in itself! Rather, I want to give you enough information to let you refashion any not-too-large set of web pages into a coherent, fast, and good-looking web app, with all the page slides and other transitions you would expect from a modern touch device, as well as bigger and easier-to-use icons, input fields, and other enhanced aspects of input and navigation.