Last week, version 1.4 of the popular jQuery library was released. The new version includes some big performance gains, alongside other cool stuff like:

• The ability to use .attr -style setter functions for all setters.
• Rails-style nested-parameter serialization for Ajax calls.
• Quick Element Construction: You can now pass in an object to add attributes and events at element-creation time:
  

  jQuery("<div/>", {
      id: "foo",
      css: {
          height: "50px",
          width: "50px",
          color: "blue",
          backgroundColor: "#ccc"
      },
      click: function() {
         $(this).css("backgroundColor", "red"); 
      }
  }).appendTo("body");
  

• Per-property Easing: You can now specify easing for individual properties of an effect.
• The new jQuery.proxy method allows you to bind this inside an event-handler to a specific object.
• You can now bind many events to an element by passing an object containing those events:
  

  $("div.test").bind({
    click: function(){
      $(this).addClass("active");
    },
    mouseenter: function(){
      $(this).addClass("inside");
    },
    mouseleave: function(){
      $(this).removeClass("inside");
    }
  });
  

• All events can now be .live events.
• Some new DOM-traversal, manipulation and utility functions have been introduced.

The 14 Days of jQuery website, created to celebrate the new release, covers what’s new in more detail.

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