22 Most Popular jQuery Plugins of 2011

Since jQuery was released in 2006, it has changed the way we think of JavaScript. And because of its simplicity, it has motivated many enthusiastic developers to create thousands of useful plugins and extends its functionality. Now, lets go through some of the most popular jQuery plugins of 2011 as It's almost over.

1. Chosen

Chosen is a JavaScript plugin that makes long, unwieldy select boxes much more user-friendly. 

2. HTML5 Uploader

Lightweight jQuery plugin that lets you to quickly add an upload system a-la-Gmail into your web app.
You only need to create a dropbox element and jQuery HTML5 Uploader will do the rest. Then you can drag & drop one or more files on the element and the files will be uploaded.

3. Isotope

An exquisite jQuery plugin for magical layouts.

4. FlexSlider

FlexSlider is an awesome, fully responsive jQuery slider plugin, perfect for both beginners and seasoned pros.

5. FitText

FitText makes font-sizes flexible. Use this plugin on your fluid or responsive layout to achieve scalable headlines that fill the width of a parent element.

6. FitVids

A lightweight, easy-to-use jQuery plugin for fluid width video embeds. FitVids automates the Intrinsic Ratio Method by Thierry Koblentz to achieve fluid width videos in your responsive web design.

7. DropKick

Creating custom dropdowns is usually a tedious process that requires a ton of extra setup time. Oftentimes lacking conveniences that native dropdowns have such as keyboard navigation. DropKick removes the tedium and lets you focus on making s@#t look good.

8. jRumble

Rumbles, vibrates, shakes, and rotates any element you choose. It's great to use as a hover effect or a way to direct attention to an element.

9. Arbor

Arbor is a graph visualization library built with web workers and jQuery. Rather than trying to be an all-encompassing framework, arbor provides an efficient, force-directed layout algorithm plus abstractions for graph organization and screen refresh handling.

10. Timelinr

This simple plugin helps you to give more life to the boring timelines. Supports horizontal and vertical layouts, and you can specify parameters for most attributes: speed, transparency, etc..

11. MotionCAPTCHA

MotionCAPTCHA is a jQuery CAPTCHA plugin, requiring users to sketch the shape they see in the canvas in order to submit a form.

12. Waypoints

Waypoints is a small jQuery plugin that makes it easy to execute a function whenever you scroll to an element.

13. jQuery.fracs

jQuery.fracs determines the fraction of an HTML element that is currently in the viewport, as well as the fraction it takes of the complete viewport and the fraction of the area that might possibly be visible. It also provides the coordinates of the visible rectangle in document, element and viewport space.

14. Apprise

An alert alternative for jQuery that looks good. Apprise is a very simple, fast, attractive, and unobtrusive way to communicate with your users. Also, this gives you complete control over style, content, position, and functionality.

15. Reveal

jQuery Modals Made Easy. Reveal is awesome because it's easy to implement and it is compatible with modern browsers.

16. grumble.js

Originally written for Huddle.com, grumble.js provides special tooltips without the usual limitations of north/east/south/west positioning.

17. Supersized

A fullscreen background slideshow built using the jQuery library.

18. jVectorMap

A jQuery plugin employed to show vector maps and visualize data on HTML pages. It uses SVG in all modern browsers like Firefox 3 or 4, Safari, Chrome, Opera, IE9, while legacy support for older versions of IE from 6 to 8 is provided with VML.

19. Masonry

A dynamic layout plugin for jQuery the flip-side of CSS floats.

20. ResponsiveSlides.js

A tiny jQuery plugin that creates a responsive slideshow using images inside a single container. It work with wide range of browsers including all IE versions from IE6 and up. It also adds css max-width support for IE6 and other browsers that don't natively support it.

21. Sisyphus.js

Gmail-like client-side drafts and bit more. You may fill forms in arbitrary way, then close your tab/browser, refresh window or open the page in a new tab to see all your changes are saved and restored.

22. Google+ Activity Widget

Display your Google+ profile and slides down your recent posts with any attached images. Widget can be also used to display posts of your Google+ Brand Page.

Tags: CSS3 , javascript , jQuery , roundup