JavaScript - tutorial - 30 - JavaScript libraries

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What is a JavaScript library? Major JavaScript libraries


What is a JavaScript library?

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A library is a JavaScript file that contains a bunch of functions.

JavaScript libraries contain various functions, methods, or objects to perform practical tasks on a webpage or JS-based application.

A JavaScript library has codes or functions that developers can reuse and repurpose. A developer writes these codes, and other developers reuse the same code to perform a certain task, like preparing a slideshow, instead of writing it from scratch. It saves them significant time and effort.
They are precisely the motive behind creating JavaScript libraries, which is why you can find dozens of them for multiple use cases. They not only save you time but also bring simplicity to the entire development process.

To use a JavaScript library in your app, add to the element using the "src" attribute that references the library source path or the URL. Read the JavaScript library's documentation you intend to use for more information and follow the steps provided there.

JavaScript libraries can be used for:

Data visualization in maps and charts

Data visualization in applications is crucial for users to view the statistics clearly in the admin panel, dashboards, performance metrics, and more. Presenting these data in charts and maps helps you analyze that data easily and make informed business decisions.

DOM manipulation

Document Object Model (DOM) represents a web page (a document) as objects and nodes that you can modify using JavaScript. You can change its content, style, and structure.

Data handling

Handling and managing data properly is essential. Using a JavaScript library makes it easier to handle a document following its content while adding more interactivity.

Database

Effective database management is necessary to read, create, delete, edit, and sort data. You can also use sophisticated queries, auto-create tables, synchronize and validate data, and much more.

Forms

Use JS libraries to simplify form functions, including form validation, synchronization, handling, conditional capabilities, field controls, transforming layouts, and more.

Animations

People love animations, and you can leverage them to make your web page interactive and more engaging. Adding micro-interactions and animations is easy by using JavaScript libraries.

Image effects

Users can add effects to images and make them stand out using JS libraries. Effects include blurring, lightening, embossing, sharpening, grayscale, saturation, hue, adjusting contrast, flipping, inverting, reflection, and so on.

Fonts

Users can incorporate any font they wish to make their web page more compelling based on the content type.

Math and string functions

Adding mathematical expressions, date, time, and strings can be tricky. For example, a date consists of many formats, slashes, and dots to make things complex for you. The same holds when it comes to matrices and vectors. Use JavaScript libraries to simplify these complexities in addition to manipulating and handling URLs effortlessly.

User interface and its components

You can provide a better user experience via web pages by making them more responsive and dynamic, decreasing the number of DOM operations, boosting page speed, and so forth.


Major JavaScript libraries

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DOJO toolkit

The Dojo is an open-source JavaScript library that helps develop cross-platform, JS, and Ajax-based websites in a faster manner. DOJO has a vast set of APIs and modules. There are several parts in DOJO toolkit:

dojo : consists of the core modules.
dijit : user interface module that helps in setting up layout and widgets.
Util : includes utilities and build tools for testing, style checking, and more.
dojox : this additional toolkit of dojo helps with charting, grids, and DTL.

jQuery

jQuery dramatically simplifies JS programming and is easy to learn and use. It is highly extensible and makes web pages load faster.

jQuery wraps up a lot of standard functions making the job of the developer easy. A JS code of several lines could be just a method to be called in jQuery.

It also has many plugins to perform different tasks.

Some of the features of jQuery are CSS manipulation, HTML/DOM manipulation, HTML events, animations and effects, utilities, and AJAX.

The best part of jQuery is the way it handles browser compatibility issues without the developer worrying about it.

Google polymer

Created by Google, Polymer is a JS library that allows developers to reuse HTML elements and create custom elements using HTML, CSS, and JS to create more interactive applications. It is compatible with different platforms.

Once you install Polymer using the command line interface or the Bower method, you can reuse already developed elements without worrying about how those were created. You can also build your custom elements using polyfills i.e., web component specifications.

The custom elements can be distributed across the network and used simply by importing the required HTML. To install and use Polymer, you should be familiar with node.js, npm, Bower, Git, and Polymer CLI.

D3.js

D3 stands for Data-Driven Documents. With D3, you can apply data-driven transformations to DOM objects, which means documents are manipulated depending on the data received.

Data can be received in any format and bound with DOM objects.

D3 is very fast and supports dynamic behavior for animation and interactions. There are plenty of already-developed modules that give room for code reuse.

D3 is flexible and exploits the full capabilities of HTML, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), and CSS. D3 code is easy to debug as it uses the browser's built-in inspector to show the path.

React.js

React is easy to understand and uses the JS library to build user interfaces for web applications (front-view or model of MVC architecture).

React is maintained by Facebook and a few other companies.

React is declarative, efficient, and flexible enough to let developers build more complex UIs using the existing pieces of code, also known as components. It is fast and scalable, hence any changes to applications do not need a page to reload.

Vue.js

Vue js is based on the Virtual DOM model, much like React, and has a component-based architecture.

Using templates of Vue.js, apps can be created faster.

Vue also requires fewer lines of code for the same task that would need more code with other libraries. If you need a small application to be built in less time, Vue should be your perfect choice.

By combining Vue with other tools and utilities, you can get a full-fledged framework. As a framework, Vue can handle complex functionalities like routing,

Anime.js