
JQuery Mobile 1.3.0 Released - laurent123456
http://jquerymobile.com/blog/2013/02/20/jquery-mobile-1-3-0-released/
======
nlh
It _looks_ great - in theory - but for some reason the performance seems to be
dismal. I put together a site using an older version of jqmobile about a year
ago and was impressed how smooth and quick the widgets worked, even on a 1G
iPad.

I just went through the demo site on my iPad 3 and it just seems terrible -
slow, improper rendering on a bunch of elements, stuttering transitions, etc.

Is anyone else finding this? Perhaps something is amiss on my iPad, but my
impression is not great so far...

~~~
windsurfer
An older version of jqmobile used some kind of FastClick technique, but it was
causing too many compatibility issues on android devices. Projects like these
need to strike a fine balance between usability and device-awareness, but
there are a number of exposed options in the library where you can optimize
for specific devices.

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wnsnw
JQuery Mobile is horrible for mobile applications, IMO.

The intrinsic stylesheet, with its rounded corners, box shadows and text
shadows results in extremely poor rendering performance in mobile browsers.
This can be rectified with work, but it demonstrates to me that their
contributors are not at all concerned with performance. Its markup is node
heavy (a single LI turns in to 5 elements). Considerations are made for
desktop browsers, yet it is proselytized as a mobile framework.

Developing with it is cumbersome; the selectors you thought would work do not,
because your element has been munged and wrapped with numerous other elements.
Triggering "create" more than once sometimes wraps elements a second time
because some widgets don't check their classes properly to know they've
already been marked up. The only way to know the widget has been created is
either checking for known classes or attempting to access one of its methods
in a try/catch.

Some widgets respond to "refresh" - some don't. Some parts of widgets respond
to it, some don't. This makes partial view updates almost, or completely,
impossible. I have been slowly replacing JQM's functionality with backbone
views and it is working much, much better.

If you use jQuery Mobile in your mobile application, I advise you do so with
an exit strategy in mind.

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programminggeek
I tried building an app with jQuery Mobile and the performance was horrible.
Whole sets of features didn't work. I spent more time trying to get things
working right than I did building the actual functionality. I had a lot more
success in Kendo Mobile.

If jQuery Mobile wasn't backed by the jQuery project, nobody would use it
because it isn't that good. It's slow, buggy, and broken. Maybe this release
fixes that, but I doubt it.

~~~
tn13
I endorse that. Wanted something lightweight to service some lage number of
static pages on android and jQuery M performed just too bad.

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jaxytee
Last time a tried using JQuery Mobile for an Android 4.0.3 HTML5 app, button
presses didn't work consistently/correctly and the performance was terrible.
Also there is still that whole JQuery dependency thing. Until the Android
Webview's robustness increases or JQuery/JQuery Mobile improve support for the
Android webview I will stick to my Zepto + MV* Framework + Custom Transitions
stack for Android HTML5 development.

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Flenser
Is there a "standard" way of detecting mobile devices and loading jQuery
Mobile along with your site's mobile JavaScript instead of the desktop
version?

Right now I'd do it like this:

    
    
      Modernizr.load({
        test: Modernizr.touch,
        yep : ['jquery-mobile.js','mobile.js']
        nope: ['jquery-ui.js','desktop.js']
      });

~~~
hughes
With the advent of touchscreen laptops, this method is becoming less reliable.

~~~
Flenser
Yup. Realised that after I posted. A way to tell if it has a HW keyboard
attached would be useful. Although the user could prefer either method, and
what do you do if they detach the KB?!?

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jakerocheleau
Could anybody with experience building mobile webapps comment on jQuery Mobile
vs Sencha Touch?

It seems like if you are not building with responsive HTM5/CSS3 you may as
well use a JS library for better UI. These are the two biggest names I have
seen and it is difficult figuring out if either one is worth the time.

~~~
krat0sprakhar
I was working on making a mobile web app a few weeks back and after quickly
deciding that a js framework would be better than a responsive site (lots of
widgets, built-in ajax functionality and push-state) I tried both jQ mobile
and jQ Touch[0]. Both are quite similar in most respects(learning curve,
widgets, etc.) However, if you're looking to completely overhaul the look then
jq Mobile, IMHO, is not that great. I found the themeroller[1] to be clunky
and difficult to use and would've preferred writing css. jqTouch, on the other
hand, is quite customizable (allows SASS based theming).

[0] - <http://www.jqtouch.com/>

[1] - <http://jquerymobile.com/themeroller/index.php>

~~~
proexploit
There's nothing that prevents you from writing CSS for JQM. The ThemeRoller is
simply a setup tool intended to make it easier for the masses. I've actually
found there's very little customization needed based on the JQM structural
base CSS.

See:
[http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.3.0/jquery.mobile.structure-...](http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.3.0/jquery.mobile.structure-1.3.0.css)

