I’ve never been particularly complimentary about the official jQuery Plugin Registry. The team are working on it, but perhaps the kindest observation is that it’s “ctional” — functional with all the “fun” removed. The system lacks an easy interface, good search facilities, online demonstrations, developer ratings and reviews.
As an alternative, why not try unheap.com — a new independent jQuery plugin repository…
The benefits of unheap.com become apparent the moment you use it:
- The site has a gorgeous dynamic and responsive interface — it’s a pleasure to use
- Plugins are categorized in sections and sub-sections for interface, inputs, media, navigation and miscellaneous code.
- The search facility works well.
- Plugin lists have direct links to demonstration pages and videos.
- Related plugins are listed.
- User views, votes and bug reports are recorded.
- Social media sharing facilities are provided.
- An RSS feed of new and updated plugins is available for you to check in
Google Reader, erm, a compatible RSS Reader. - The plugin submission process is easy and straight-forward.
- Almost 700 plugins are available at the time of writing.
I’m impressed. Unless the jQuery team can produce a system as nice as unheap.com, perhaps they should give up now and adopt it as the “official” repository?
Unless you’ve found something better?…
Meet the author
Craig is a freelance UK web consultant who built his first page for IE2.0 in 1995. Since that time he's been advocating standards, accessibility, and best-practice HTML5 techniques. He's written more than 1,000 articles for SitePoint and you can find him @craigbuckler
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