We’re excited to announce that we’ve finalized version 1.7 of the jQuery UI library; we think this is a momentous release and a major leap forward on a host of fronts.

What’s new?

There’s a ton of new stuff in 1.7. We’ve fixed hundreds of bugs since 1.5.3 and are introducing many new features, a better core architecture, and major theming improvements. We blogged about it already for the rc’s, but here is quick list of the highlights:

  • jQuery 1.3 compatibility

    jQuery 1.7 is the first release that is compatible with jQuery 1.3. That’s a good thing (if you can make the switch), since jQuery 1.3 brings major performance improvements to many areas of jQuery UI. Specifically, firing events, DOM operations, and getting element offsets have had massive performance improvements. More about the jQuery 1.3 release…

  • Revamped and optimized plugins

    In addition to a long list of bug fixes and improvements, we’ve refactored and optimized each plugin to use the cleanest HTML possible, with a flexible set of options to make it easy for developers to extend and tweak widgets. We’ve also added a new progress bar plugin in this release.

  • CSS framework

    jQuery UI 1.7 is built upon a brand new and powerful CSS framework that is designed to support not only jQuery UI’s own plugins, but also custom plugin development, so any developer can easily make their plugins ThemeRoller ready. It is a special kind of CSS framework that is aimed specifically at user interface development as opposed to overall page layout. The framework provides classes for commonly used UI elements, states, containers and icons and is manipulated by jQuery UI ThemeRoller. More about the jQuery UI CSS Framework…

  • Themeroller v2

    ThemeRoller has been completely redesigned to complement the new CSS framework and widget designs. ThemeRoller now resides in a vertical sidebar and has loads of new features. We also created a ThemeRoller Developer Tool (a bookmarklet, so you can bring ThemeRoller into any web page) and a Theme Switcher (so you can switch between themes with a simple drop-down box).

  • Demos & Documentation

    Maybe you’ve seen it already: We merged the top navigation links “Demos” and “Documentation” into a unified Demos & Documentation section, so it’s easy to browse demos and read the documentation all in one integrated experience. We’ve grouped demos of similar features and options together so you can easily tab from one to another and compare. As you navigate within a page, we update the URL to ensure accurate bookmarking and deep linking.

  • Full offline documentation

    Full documentation for each plugin is now included in the release. Just take a look at the /docs/ folder in the development bundle. There’s a separate (and simple) html file for each jQuery UI plugin method. There’s no styesheet for these files yet, but they’re quite functional even without. We’ll see about making it a little more like the website Demos & Documentation in a future release.

  • Major website improvements

    We refactored the download builder (using progressive enhancement, so it now works with JavaScript disabled) and integrated a base theme into the download along with a demo html file of all the widgets for easy integration. We refactored and improved the landing pages for the Development and Support sections to be more information-rich and up-to-date.

  • CSS framework and themes on Google AJAX Libraries API

    As before, the latest stable release of jQuery UI (now 1.7) is hosted on Google’s CDN. New in this release, however, Google is also hosting the new jQuery UI CSS Framework, as well as our current suite of pre-built themes: base, black-tie, blitzer, cupertino, dot-luv, excite-bike, hot-sneaks, humanity, mint-choc, redmond, smoothness, south-street, start, swanky-purse, trontastic, ui-darkness, ui-lightness, and vader.

  • Themes bundle

    You can now download all the ThemeRoller Gallery themes at once: jquery-ui-themes-1.7.zip. Or if you’re savvy with svn: http://jquery-ui.googlecode.com/svn/tags/1.7/themes/.

  • A new dedicated blog

    If you’re reading this, you probably know it already. We finally made the switch to our very own blog at http://blog.jqueryui.com/, where we’ll regularly blog about development, theming, and more during each release. To link the jQuery and jQuery UI blogs, Richard Worth is starting a “This week in jQuery UI” series on the jQuery UI blog, while Karl Swedberg (of learningjquery.com) will do a “This week in jQuery” series on the jQuery blog, and they will link to eachother.

Getting Started with 1.7

If you’re brand new to jQuery UI, or if you’ve worked with a version posted before [January 2009], there are some changes to the API and directory structures that would be helpful to understand. To get everyone up to speed fast, we’ve created a Getting Started Guide that walks through the basics of what jQuery UI 1.7 can do, how to use themes, and how to download and use the new jQuery UI for the first time.

Upgrading to 1.7 from previous versions

To ease the transition to version 1.7, we’ve created a detailed Upgrade Guide that summarizes what has changed for each plugin. If you want to dig into the details, you can view the full 1.7 Changelog which lists every change made in this release.

What about jQuery 1.2.6 compatibility?

As we announced earlier, jQuery UI 1.7 is only compatible with the latest jQuery 1.3+. Now that 1.7 is out the door, we’re turning our attention to creating a jQuery 1.6 legacy release (based on 1.6rc2) that will roll as many bug fixes as possible into the 1.5.3 codebase and be compatible with jQuery 1.2.6. We’re hoping to have this complete within the next month. To learn more about this split release approach, please see jQuery UI 1.7 is the new 1.6.

Get involved: Join us on the planning wiki!

We welcome your participation and feedback as we grow into a larger project. To keep us organized and make planning transparent to the community, we’ve created a new design and planning wiki at http://wiki.jqueryui.com/, where we’re refining and detailing our processes for growing the team and the project, accepting and reviewing contributions, and prioritizing new plugins into a roadmap. By channeling ideas and decisions made on the jQuery UI Dev google group conversations into the wiki, we hope to provide a single, unified view of our current thinking. To see what we’re up to, check the summary of the current development status at the top of the wiki homepage.

Thanks!

Last but not least, we really want to thank all of the (nearly 300) contributors that helped make this release what it is. We could not have done it without you: 11880, 4pcbr, aakoch, aali, aaronbarker, adamc, aflesler, aimerick, ajacksified, ajpiano, aksival, akuzemchak, alan.castro, aleemb, ALLPRO, anatari, andreas, andrew.akester, andreyavram, antin, apaella, arjen.vellinga, Arshad Abbas, astray, auxbuss, ayoung, bendewey, Benjamin Sterling, Blakomen, bmoen, boconnor, Bohdan Ganicky, braddunbar, Briel, brucealdridge, Bruno Basto, buzz, c_schmitz, c_t, C-rank, Ca-Phun Ung (pazu2k), calin.pavel, cap60552, chag, cheeaun, cheesedoily, chrisbarr, Christopher T Tillman, cjwilks, Cloudream, Cody Lindley, Colin Clark, Cornelis G. A. Kolbach, cr at accxmedia, d.glynn, d.taylor, Dakkar, daniel at zelisko, daniel.richard, datactrl, Dave, Dave Methvin, david, david at davidkmuir, David Bolter, davidb, deebo, dekimsey, designerno1, destitutus, dg.kaba, dgyimesi, djfrey, dmuir, dodge, donschuy, doyer.guyllaume, dtetto, dypa, ebartels, edomato, Eduardo Lundgren, electrawn, epascarello, erangalp, Eric Martin, eric258, erl, f.hewitt, figital, filamentgroup, Firehed, Flat Stanley, floating.eye22, Fontzter, fracmak, fusioned, fyedernoggersnodden, gargantuan, GavynSykes, george.blouin, GlowingRose, gpbmike, gregmac, Gunner, happycow, headchem, herve, hex0id, HookipaDave, hwinkel, ifeghali, Jackson F. de A. Mafra, Jacob, jacobat, jamrok, janmarek, jasondavies, jbourey, jeff, Jess Mitchell, jezaustin, jimmy, jink, jneal at liferay, Jo-W, johng, JohnnyCee, Jonas Flint, Jonathan Sharp, jonspalmer, Jörn Zaefferer, Joshua Langner, jpra, jsamort, jsycamore, jzu, kaladis, kam99, Karl Swedberg, kbwood, Kevin Dalman, kevingessner, KevinM2k, Klaus Hartl, kof, kof13, Kostrowsky, kouphax, kpitn, kylev, leason, linoj, lionel.armanet, lisbakke, lublushokolad, lukebrookhart, macarthy, magenest, Maggie Wachs, maguireji, Marc Diethelm, Marc Grabanski, Mark Gibson, mark_story, mark.leung, Marsha Hardy, mask2012 at 126, matt83uk, Matteo Ligabue, mattih5, Maurice, mdenyse, memaddy, mephis1987, metayii, mgerstenblatt, mgl, mharpste, mholmes, michelled, mikejolley, mikioma, mlang74, morf, Morten, mpj, mtk, nanodeath, Nate Cavanaugh, Nathaniel, neiljaywarner, NeoAnderson, nestor.urquiza, nivancevic, nlothian, nostrademons, ntoniazzi, obrie, olivier, onestone, op, paranoidsponge, paul, Paul Bakaus, paul.p.carey@gmail.com, Pavel.Mileshchenko, peterp, PJ, Point, pwnedd, r.riedl at gmx, random at luktown, Ranga Narendra, Rao S. Thotakura, raus22, raziel057, rdworth, recrit, redsquare, Remy Sharp, Rey Bango, rgattinoni, Rich Caloggero, rjwalsh at stanford, robmonie, roch at immoserver, rodrigocuriel, roywb, s.lopes at chello, saturnism, Scott González, scottjehl, seb.duggan, serializer, serverfire, shelane, shlomoweb1, Skaffen, skeetio, skorpan, smoofles, smurkas, snobo, sonofanickel, sonukapoor, sorpigal, sosensible, spiri, Steven Black, Stuardo -StR- Rodríguez, svinopas, sylvain.baronnet, szinya at mentha, tallvanilla, Tane Piper, taylorr, tcarnell, theothermike, ThrushAAX, tiago.simoes, Tim, timothee, tjerkw, tleveque, tlianza, Todd Parker, Tom Dyer, torq, ToyChicken, trixta, Trustmaster, tud, tuzemec, txgruppi, unique, vakata, valerchik, vladm, vmx, walterbt, webdawson, wichert, Wobble, wolfpakz, Yëco, zeguizmo, ZeroMD, ziadoz, zigzag.chen.