Welcome to jQuery UI Themes: Beginner's Guide. This introductory text will get you started with developing your own themes for jQuery UI applications. Starting with the general concepts of user interface themes, this book walks the reader through everything from the most basic ideas in jQuery UI to more advanced topics such as icons and themes for custom widgets.

Web applications today generally use at least some JavaScript to enhance the look and feel of the user interface. The jQuery UI toolkit gives web developers a set of widgets as well as a framework for developing and applying themes.

jQuery UI Themes: Beginner's Guide is for web developers who want to design professional-looking applications that are resilient to change. It is a step-by-step guide that goes beyond showing how to switch themes in a user interface built with jQuery UI and offers developers a practical guide to designing their own themes and gives them insight as to how themes work.

JQuery UI Themes Beginner's Guide starts with themes in general and why they're important in web applications today. We gradually move forward, covering jQuery UI basics, eventually aiming for a full understanding of the theme framework. The ThemeRoller application is a powerful tool - allowing developers to easily adjust theme settings. In addition to seeing how the ThemeRoller works, we take a more in-depth look at the CSS framework internals allowing readers to develop the ability to adjust themes in ways the ThemeRoller cannot. This includes everything from special effects to theming custom widgets. There is no limit to what your theme can change.

Once you've read this book, you'll no only be well-versed in theming jargon, you'll also be able to take one look at any jQuery UI application and understand why and how it looks the way it does.

This book gives you the opportunity to create jQuery UI themes, learning by example.

What you will learn from this book

• Understand what themes are and why they matter
• Learn How The jQuery UI tookit works - what widgets are, and how they relate to themes
• Understand the details of the ThemeRoller application: how to effectively use this tool to design themes in a timely manor
• Develop an understanding of the top-level CSS constructs. Apply styles to broad portions of the user interface
• Change the look and feel of widgets based on user interaction and application events
• Use cues to inform the user, and effectively apply styles to these messages
• Use the jQuery UI icon sets as well as designing your own
• Use special effects to enhance the visual appearance of widgets
• Customize the look and feel of widgets

Approach

This book is a step-by-step tutorial aimed at beginners to JQuery UI Themes. There is ready-for-use sample code explained with essential screenshots for better and quicker understanding.

Who this book is written for

This book is for web application developers and CSS designers who want a better understanding of how to build themes for the jQuery UI toolkit. The reader should have a basic working knowledge of JavaScript and why it is used in web applications. Experience with jQuery UI and a general working knowledge of CSS will speed things along but aren't a requirement. Readers can use this book as a starting point to familiarize themselves with the jQuery UI widget details.