Building UIs with Wijmo

Wijmo lets you use widgets on your websites for more flexibility and ease of use in the user interface. This book shows you how with a refreshingly logical and example-led approach that makes learning a pleasure.

Overview

• Learn to configure Wijmo components for common usage scenarios
• Build adaptive websites that work on desktops and mobile devices
• Integrate Wijmo with Knockout to develop real-time applications

In Detail

Until recently, writing applications using JavaS cript and HTML was difficult, because developers had to make the user interface by themselves; however, this started changing with the introduction of JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, jQuery UI, and KnockoutJS. An extension of jQuery UI, Wijmo adds features and widgets on top of jQuery UI and makes it easier to add user interface widgets to HTML documents.

Building UIs with Wijmo gives you a tour of what Wijmo offers at a glance. With code recipes and well-explained examples, you will be able to use Wijmo in no time. The book gives details on options not explained in the documentation and helps you avoid those that don't work. The examples only feature the necessary code, with recommendations and best practices.

This book introduces Wijmo, grouping widgets by their common application area or usage. It walks the user through the features of the dialog widget with examples as an introduction to the library. Then, widgets for forms, images, tootips, and other topics are explored.

Features only available in the Wijmo dialog widget compared to the jQuery UI widget are thoroughly explained with examples. Common form components such as checkboxes, dropdowns, and inputs have Wijmo counterparts which keep the theme consistent and add functionalities. When Wijmo is used with Knockout, the UI automatically refreshes when the data changes. This book takes it further with WebSockets for two way communication between the server and client. With Building UIs with Wijmo, you will learn all the common web development components in Wijmo. You will get started using Wijmo in no time.

What you will learn from this book

• Set up Wijmo for development and production
• Change the Dialog widget's appearance
• Replace form components with widgets
• Autoplay images with the Carousel widget
• Create a LightBox widget and customize its buttons
• Play videos in the Gallery widget
• Fix the appearance of the InputDate widget
• Program real-time applications with declarative bindings in the MVVM style

Approach

Written with an example-based approach, Building UIs with Wijmo leads you step by step through the implementation and customization of each library component and its associated resources. Reference tables of each configuration option, method, and event for each component are provided, alongside detailed explanations of how each widget is used.

Who this book is written for

Building UIs with Wijmo is targeted at readers who are familiar with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery, and have a basic understanding of web development. Although knowledge of jQuery UI is not mandatory, it would be a bonus as it is quite similar to Wijmo. Only the last chapter of the book on extending Wijmo requires advanced CSS and JavaScript knowledge.