jQuery 1.7 starts on/off switch

The latest version of the popular jQuery JavaScript framework, version 1.7, unifies the way that JavaScript developers "bind" to events by adding new common .on() and .off() methods. There are a number of existing ways, .bind(), .unbind(), .delegate(), .undelegate(), .live() and .die() which will be superseded by the new .on() and .off() API. The use of the new API is recommended, although the old methods will remain in place for now.

Another change in jQuery 1.7 sees improved performance in the handling of delegated events; this was based on examining a cross section of code from Google's soon to be shutdown Code Search and seeing how selectors were used. The developers then optimised for these cases and now delegated events are delivered in half the time compared to jQuery 1.6.4.

Other changes include better HTML5 support for IE6, IE7 and IE8, more intuitive animation behaviour, support for the Asynchronus Module Definition API (AMD API), enhancements to jQuery.Deferred and the addition of jQuery.isNumeric(). The developers also removed the event.layerX and event.layerY properties and the undocumented jQuery.isNaN() and jQuery.event.proxy() methods. The announcement has full details of all the modifications, including a detailed change log.

jQuery 1.7 is available as a direct download from the jQuery CDN (Content Delivery Network) at http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.js, and in minified form from http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.min.js. The developers say it should be available on the Microsoft and Google CDN's "within a day or two". jQuery is dual licensed under the MIT or GPLv2 licences.

(djwm)