Blog » Death to JavaScript Rock Stars!
Posted August 29th, 2008 by John ResigWe’ve been listening to your feedback today, about the new jQuery site redesign and one thing has become clear:
Death to JavaScript Rock Stars!
Poor dude didn’t even last 24 hours. We wanted to have some fun with the home page, but this bordered on a little too “extreme” for most tastes.
We plan on bringing some further revisions to the homepage in the future, but in the meantime here’s a quick overhaul, put together by the always-excellent Scott Jehl, that’ll help tide everyone over:
As a token of our appreciation for sticking with the “JavaScript Rock Star” for a day we’ve included a little Easter Egg in the new site. It would be useful if you knew the Konami Code.
Naturally, the whole redesign still has many tweaks that’ll be made over the next couple weeks, especially to individual page fonts, font sizes, and colors.
I want to, once again, thank Scott Jehl for all the hard work that he’s been putting in to the site design - and the excellent Varick Rosete (of nGenWorks and Happy Webbies) for the great illustration that he drew for us.
Here’s to many happy days of rockin’ out with jQuery!
August 29th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Thanks for listening.
j.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Wow! Talk about rapid response.
In an ideal word, I’d want to see this site bind more tightly to the Devo motif, but I suppose it’s not in your best interests to make it too avant-garde. People rely on this site for information, after all.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
fun easter egg John…
but due to the orientation it’s almost impossible to play.
maybe i just have a slow pinky, who knows?
August 29th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
This indeed is a great community. Yes, thanks for listening.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Love the easter egg. And I’m glad you guys removed the whole Rock Star, although it was a nice illustration it just didn’t fit with jQuery.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Great! Goodbye and good riddance to Mr Rock!
Speaking of site design, the secondary navigation bar could use a stronger jq-current style. The rollover is fine how it is, but when you’re actually on the Documentation tab, for example, it would be nice to know it without squinting at the nav bar. Just my 2c.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
But the rockstar was awesome
August 29th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
To everyone who misses the rock star: Don’t worry, I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him - I bet he’ll make an appearance on a t-shirt at some point
August 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Big props to the illustrator, the rockstar was an awesome drawing! Newest tweaks are great.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I really liked the rockstar. It gave the homepage additional life. And I thought most jQuery users/rockstars were of the age to enjoy something like that.
I was a gorgeous illustration either way!
Kudos on the new site, it kicks major arse!
August 29th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I miss RED. jQuery was always red to me. And the logo RY ligature is weeeeirdd.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I really like the logo text. I’ve been wondering for a while now when it would get, er, backported from the UI site to the homepage.
Major thanks to everyone involved (and extra bonus thanks for listening to us “haters”).
August 29th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I second that. A red-black combination would’ve fit better, because jQuery has always been so hot!
Anyways, thanks John Resig for jQuery, I absolutely love it. We’re about to launch our site 2.0 (Viajeros.com, in closed beta now) and I’ve done a enormous amount of work with it that would’ve been impossible otherwise. As a designer/UI responsible, jQuery made me less afraid of Javascript programming and much more efficient. Thanks again!!!
August 29th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
[…] Just noticed a tweet from John Resig - the “rockstar” is officially out and here is their latest post. In response to that, I think there’s definitely ways to have “fun” with the homepage it’s just a matter of finding the right “thing” to represent the fun that fits their demographic. […]
August 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Great.
and I suggest to replace the Download button’s text with something like:
$.dl(jQuery);
It more related to “write less…” than Download(jQuery);
and also it more jQuery friendly!
August 29th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
hmm.. My only comments are that some aspects of the redesign just don’t look quite right. The tooltips on the frontpage, the checkboxes for radio selects and the misalignment of the logos in the sponsors section on hover.
My Suggestion: on the Download button, make use of background image animation. Have it fade in or something, I think It’d look much better, and fit in with the smooth colours and clean design of the rest of the site.
Otherwise, awesome redesign!
August 29th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Thanks for listening.
Don’t listen to Siavash; no need to make the download button confusing for new users.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Oops, sorry.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Geez, I really can’t believe that so many people had a problem with the ‘Rock Star’ graphic. I personally never even got the chance to see it, or even comment on it.
It’s great that you listen to people, but I doubt if I’m the only one who never even got to see it.
:(
August 29th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
[…] Update: Parece que ouviram a comunidade desenvolvedora e removeram o Rock Stars do site […]
August 29th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Yeah I feel much better without him. He seemed so corny to me. But yeah, the easter egg was great, although I failed miserably.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I want a “Javascript Rockstart” t-shirt
Somebody else?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
@Abraham: Hmmm that sounds like a cool idea. I need to talk to John about it.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I liked the image, but I was concerned people wouldn’t take jQuery as seriously with it. It’s great to see you guys are responding to feedback. Perhaps there’s a place for the fun side of jQuery somewhere else in the site. A hacker’s portal perhaps?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I agree.. The checks should be replaced with radio buttons, unless you could allow for us to download both at the same time.
The tooltips are a bit obtrusive for me. I’d rather just have that additional text placed below the heading.
The secondary navigation (the lower, larger, brighter bar!) doesn’t make sense for me anymore once you get to the right side of the primary navigation as it is the secondary nav for jquery, not for the selected item in the primary nav.
I would rather see the entire site map in the footer.
Trebuchet MS, yuck! At least specify it after a nice font available on Mac OS X.
“write less, do more.” seems like it should be sharper. It’s always looked blurry, even on the UI site.
Overall I do like the redesign quite a bit, however I feel it’s a bit too busy visually. For instance, setting “Search jQuery” in italics…, too many gradients, etc.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I was thinking the whole “rockstar/ninja” thing was becoming played out so it was odd to see it front and center, horns blazing.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
It still could use some work, but is better.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Thanks for listening. The revision looks nice. The publicity seemed to work though eh?
August 29th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I admire your daring desire for the wild, but it’s true, I do identify more w/ the site as it is, sans-rockstar.
Way to not just listen to your users, but also really thoughtfully consider your audience.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
im with that one post - in my mind i will always see jquery as red. i think it would have been a good idea to keep your brand colors. oh well.
the shiny effects on that download button are horrible. it has absolutely no shading/gradients and looks like it was totally thrown together last minute. do you know how many people are going to click that button?! cmon now.
new logo looks like a cross between a mobile cell carrier and cigarettes.
sadfaces all around for me, sorry guys.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
It had nothing to do with it being “extreme,” and everything to do with it being a horrible illustration and completely out of place.
Thanks for listening to the community.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:06 am
[…] Finally, the new Jquery website design. And wow, the rock star image didn’t last long did it? I thought it was a very bold step, but too bold for some it seems! […]
August 30th, 2008 at 12:31 am
The Easter egg is interesting, however the key handling code on the jQuery homepage needs to return false at the end of the function so Firefox (and other) users with features like Find As You Type turned on can access the egg without tweaking browser settings.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I love all your new brand design… but what I loved the most was the rock dude. :’(… it’ll be in our hearts!.
Long life to the rock-fueled programming community!
August 30th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Just wanted to quickly throw in my two cents: I visit the jQuery site a lot, mostly due to checking and re-checking the documentation. The layout seems a little cramped now (maybe make the content areas a bit wider?) and it has always seemed easier to look at a brighter, friendlier site. I’m not a big fan of this darker look, but maybe it will grow on me.
Regardless, thanks to everyone involved for all of the hard work and of course for giving us such a great tool.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:13 am
[…] Awesome. […]
August 30th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Is There no “packed” download option anymore????
August 30th, 2008 at 1:20 am
I’m very impressed how maturely the jQuery web team have handle this, listening to the community and reminding them that their opinion *does* matter. My hat goes off both for the design but also in the way you guys conducted business over the last 24 hours.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:27 am
[…] PS2: După nici 24 de ore rockerul de pe jQuery a dispărut. Citiţi aici. Apreciază articolul: (3 evaluări, media: 4.33 din 5) Loading … […]
August 30th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Oh noes. I already started showing it around say “look Ma, jQuery haz moar rockstar than f*cking %&?$§$”
August 30th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I don’t like this new design isn’t friendly for beginners. Please quit dark colors :-s
August 30th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I agree with the opinion that this dark style and the bad typography in the logo appeals to the 1337 script kiddies, gamers and so on.. The old style was fine.
If you want some new, why don’t you try a clean and light professional look like apple or mozilla? Don’t understand me wrong, the current style is really nice in the quality view, but I think you have a view at the wrong target group.
There is much more potential in the library than this page reflect.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:12 am
So much better
Thanks for listening 
August 30th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Removing the graphic was a good start.
In way of advice, from the point of view of communication design process, the best thing the branding and evangelism team can take from this exercise is that - jQuery’s target marketing goes beyond individual designers and developers to include members of project teams, corporate decision makers and heads of departments.
The ‘Rock Star’ site design showed misdirection in understanding that target demographic.
The other point I’d like to make is that - “Write Less, Do More” is a very strong and positive slogan - it should be utilised more and embraced as the jQuery tag line. That’s one element of the marketing kit you can happily cross off the list in my opinion.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:40 am
…and great easter egg
August 30th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Why not make the Konami-code lead to the Rockstar-version?
That would be handy if I want to sell jQuery to my little nephew
August 30th, 2008 at 3:27 am
@all complaining checkboxes should be radios:
Have you even looked at the source? Those are styled radios.
@jQuery Team
I think removing the Rock Star was the right decision. It was childish IMHO.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:39 am
@Nikola
Who cares about source for radios/checkbox? What I see is a checkboxes group behave like a radios group. I think this is wrong.
In this page bottom menu I see “Documentation” shadowed, it’s correct?
@jQueryTeam
I want a rockstart tshirt too!
August 30th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Thanks for listening. It’ll be much easier to convince people of the awesomeness that is jQuery now that the rock star is gone
August 30th, 2008 at 4:12 am
I liked the Rockstar!
August 30th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Still, the fixed width is too narrow for viewing tutorials & docs.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Great job on removing the rockstar, which seemed to imply the opposite of the concise beauty of jQuerv, formerly known as jQuery.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:22 am
good move guys
August 30th, 2008 at 4:28 am
>> Nerd Alert > End Nerd Alert
August 30th, 2008 at 4:51 am
I don’t even know what to say, but I’ve been into some little to medium but import graphics projects and part of some real creative design process, nothing really big. I’ve heard and seen a lot of crazy ideas, but far from being not the perfect thing for the jquery branding I think it has some powerful and strong effect, I personally would consider that radical move with the rockstar thing. I know maybe some people even call the police because the crime against their eyes, but isn’t jquery that cool and radical enough to do this?, I almost would bet that this type of design is going to be a trend anytime soon. Why don’t you guys put that design against a real poll and see what we, the jquery fans really want or like? I just love the rad factor of the rockstar! or at least put the old DEVO hat somewhere in this new website! please. no matter what happens, jquery… respect.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:37 am
In my opinion, space is expensive and there is too much free space left. You could make less vertical margin and padding, and try to keep the first page with no (or few) vertical scroll…
August 30th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Excellent, thanks!
August 30th, 2008 at 6:38 am
[…] jquery.com redesigned yesterday. Now, one day later they dropped that futt-bugly rockstar thingy. Great! (no, that’s not sarcastic … I’m glad to see they dropped it as it was rather adolescent-targetting imo; Not quite appropriate for such a professional package). Spread the word! […]
August 30th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Well that didn’t last long! I wasn’t particularly keen on it but then I don’t look at the homepage very often so didn’t really bother me that much - nice to see that the community rules though…
On a separate note, love the Konami Code easter egg!
August 30th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I liked the old design better and i feel like sitting in a dark room when the page has dark design.
I used to think the jQuery logo was weird but now after redesign the site it just feels like jquery turned from “write less, do more” to “bling bling” JS library.
It is still my favourite though.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Much better. I still don’t prefer the dark layout (hard to read), nor do I like the very narrow design (horrible for reading the docs on my widescreen monitor).
I’ve already fixed the width problem with my own Stylish css, and I may do the same for the dark colors. As long as the content is there, though, I can always fix the styles I don’t like.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Heh! This whole mini-soap-opera has been a bunch of fun!
I think it would have been be ultra amusing if the Rock Star illustration (the actual character himself) was replaced by a super geeky nerd in a jumper (cardigan) with spectacles! Juxtaposed with the flashy “ROCK STAR” tagline, it would have made me laugh. And, hopefully, angered an even bigger crowd
August 30th, 2008 at 8:47 am
[…] Order has been restored and the Rock Star is dead! Bookmark: […]
August 30th, 2008 at 9:54 am
It wasn’t “extreme,” any more than a Crest ad featuring a rock guitarist is “extreme.” It was just silly.
But thanks for removing it.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Great redesign, but I have a small suggestion. I’m suscripted to plugin’s RSS. Sometimes I get updates on plugins I don’t know (and using a very cryptic names), for example: http://plugins.jquery.com/node/3764. On the old site it was easy to go back to the plugin’s main page, to check some demos, navigate the author’s website etc. But on the new design its difficult even to find a description of what the plugin does. A breadcrum will be useful on this case.
Keep the good work!
August 30th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Score 6039, lol. Now all we need is a lite/brighter version of the design… Bright on dark background makes my eyes bleed and causes headaches. No joke, here’s a good article on it: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200608/light_text_on_dark_background_vs_readability/
Apparently there are also people who have the same issue with dark on bright, so if a design uses such high contrast in design, then ideally the site should have stylesheets for both contrast versions.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Bravo on the game and on removing the illustration. I actually really like the color scheme, for what it’s worth.
And another vote for making radio buttons look like radio buttons.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Thank you.
I know you guys just wanted to have some fun, and I can’t blame you for that. I guess the lesson to be learned is there are always superficial and opinionated assholes, like myself, who will ruin that fun.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Nice one, that image was truly cringeworthy.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I had to paint my keyboard so I could play the game!
August 30th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Thank you for listening to the community! JQuery is an excellent framework, and I am glad to see that you are so responsive to your users needs. Keep up the great work.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Sorry for the spamming, but my eyes couldn’t take it any longer so I made a userstyle, since I still want to browse this site. Maybe it’s useful for others, so here’s an easy fix for people with the same bright-on-dark issue: http://userstyles.org/styles/10122
It makes the black go away, replacing it with a more comfortable blue that still matches with the rest of the site. If it’s still too dark for you then it’s an easy 1 line edit.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I liked the rock star. You fucking nerds disdain anything resembling a life. Fucking nerds and your emo faggotry.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:54 am
It’s pathetic if people complain about an image on jquery.com. Don’t they have better and more important things to do? This is just a website, and having a rock star image on the front page doesn’t make jquery any less awesome.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
It was defnitely the right decision to get rid of the rock star. And concerning the ester egg: that’s the kind of style and humour that’s unique for jQuery. Really cool!
August 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Awesome easter egg!
It’s a bit fast for me; is there a beginner mode? >_
August 30th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Nice. I thought the rockstar bit was a little weird.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I *liked* the Rockstar Guy. I thought it was a funny caricature of the Web 2.0 mentality.
I have preserved the Rockstar Guy for like-minded individuals to enjoy:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3026/2809148861_45a9c46390_o.png
August 30th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Sorry, but on this page, jQuery For Designers, of the tutorial, the MarkPanay.com example links don’t work. Thanks!
August 30th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The Site looks to dark.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
At first I wasn’t convinced about that rock star thing, but it added some lightweight feel to the front page. Now it looks just dull, not fun anymore. Working with jQuery is fun, and the page should show that.
Probably many people are just to serious about how a JavaScript library should look like. I would be glad if the rock star would make a come back of sorts.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
The comments here give an impression that most jQuery users are total complaintFags.
Anyway, thanks a lot for building this awesome tool.New design looks great.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
It’s annoying how the Netflix logo moves to the bottom right when hovering, but the other logos goes straight down without moving over.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Put the rockstar on the blog page. The blog is a non-serious area where you can have fun. The front page of the framework though is where you want to attract as much people as you can rather than alienate a large demographic (people older than 15 and the corporate users.)
August 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
John; We loved your fun banner.
We are a very serious company and jQuery is for some of us (some shit developer still prefer prototype or dojo
) a professionnal tool.
I think that many people complains but I’m sure that the average thought that was a cool and great banner, but you know it’s always the same : people only post when it’s bad and to complain, not to congratz …
By the way, for me the design is not so important, it’s the global ergonomy of your website, which is very nice don’t worry
Continue this way, you are doing great work and the community is proud to use this nice framework.
kisses from Belgium
August 30th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Thank you so much for removing that image. I was going to point to your live site during a presentation next week.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
What about some Easter Egg bringing back the Rock Star for us who actually loved it?
August 30th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Thanks for your responsiveness. I still think the site is way too heavy for me–jQuery is all about light&simple and this design just screams “enterprise bloat” somehow–but the rockstar was the single worst thing and it’s great that you heard us out. Personal taste aside (I just didn’t like it), it’s important for me to be able to “sell” jQuery to my boss and to my clients — and that is a sell that is a thousand times easier to make when the site is crisp, straightforward, and professional. I know we’re all rockstars at heart and there should be websites and communities where we can get our Javascript rock-out on… just not on jQuery.com.
Thanks for listening.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
It wasn’t that the image was bad, it was just that it totally didn’t fit with the site. The drawing itself was awesome. I still think the logo doesn’t work for what this is — a Javascript library — but it may grow on me.
It’s great that you actually listened, so kudos for that.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Thank god, you’ve fixed it
August 30th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Line 115 of screen.css needs the width set to 47em (instead of 46) as the secondary and footer navigation is wrapping to a second line.. at least with FF3 on XP..
Otherwise, the new site is nice.. my only request would be to link the quick API function list to the actual reference pages??
August 30th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I’m really pleased to see this go.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who would consider ditching jQuery, at least in public, if it leads to accusations of being a “Rock Star”!!
A points about the web design.
The text does not change size if the user wants it to.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
if you’re going to write a javascript library, then naturally you would make sure it works in all browsers, ya? now I know it’s most likely not the library messing up here but whoever wrote the HTML; but someone who is deciding on a library and has to develop on ie6 browsers is going to skip by yours when they see this:
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/1761/jqueryie6hw6.png
just sayin.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Ola Pessoal,
Realmente o Bolg da um Worload danado no IE6, alem de zuar todo o estilo da pagina, o estilo tenho certeza que é o CSS, mas esse esquema do workload deve ser o javascript do jquery que esta mal-configurado ou mal escrito,,,no FF 2.16 vai bem legal…parabens pelo design novo do site e bons codigos…de CSS também…
t+
August 30th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
You should use remove() on the feature popups… when you hover over them quickly, the previous popup remains as the new one fades in. If you move back and forth quickly then stop, they will continue to popup and hide long after mouseout!
August 30th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Great image - I mean the artwork is very very cool.
But, as others suggested, it wasn’t a good fit for jQuery IMO.
Thanks for taking it down - some bosses/clients out there wouldn’t understand - and sometimes its hard already to sell ‘open source’ to them.
Thanks … for the best JS library in the world
August 30th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
[…] jQuery.com pulled the Javascript Rockstar graphic responding quickly to user feedback. […]
August 30th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
i would really love to see the red back in action. jquery is always red to me
August 30th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I had no problem with rock star and ninjas stuff. Largely because i do not care.
What i care about is usability. It seem like the worse usability feature right now are the popups that occur on mouse over following text:
* Light weight
* Cross-browser
* CSS compliant
Not only they hide the actually text making hard to understand which popup refer which text, but also they overlap other text resulting in confusion.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:06 am
Oh thank Google. The rockstar is gone.
Now to do something about this new logo…
August 31st, 2008 at 2:07 am
ohh good grief. It was a graphic for goodness sakes. GET OVER IT FOLKS! I actually liked it. It gave me a chuckle, and anyone that whined and complained about it needs to get out and get some kind of a life. I don’t think you should have caved on this one. Screw the masses! That’s what makes a true rockstar! Ya don’t like it? Go use mootools or something. Jquery is for true coding rockstars, not stiff as a board nerds!
Next time have a graphic with a dude holding up his skateboard shaped keyboard labeled: “code or die” or something corny like that. I vote bring the rockstar back!
August 31st, 2008 at 3:32 am
I find it interesting that many of the comments here that are the ‘most passionate’ are generally the least useful in terms of valuable feedback.
Objectively critiquing a design and analysing it’s success against a set of objectives is not ‘complaining’ - it’s par for the course in any graphic and communication design process.
Subjective references to cool, rad, hip, edgy, exciting, different, powerful, strong, non-serious, fun, humor is irrelevant if the design doesn’t achieve it’s goals.
Although people are treating this as a taste war over the inclusion of the illustration - the real discussion is - whether www.jquery.com is aimed at individual ‘Rock star’ aligned designer / developers or aimed at a broader target market.
If it’s the latter, then the original execution failed to communicate that, regardless of anyone’s like / dislike for the illustration or the resulting adjective inducing community reaction.
This process would (or should) have been done by the web team before the design progressed and for the reaction to be so strongly opposed to the end result - they either didn’t invest enough time researching and assessing that, or made too many assumptions, or deliberately elected to do it knowing that this would happen. Either way, it will be a valuable learning experience for them.
Being serious about design is not synonymous with producing ’serious design’, it’s about communicating the message effectively to the right audience and for the right reasons.
As for some of the more colourful and passionate remarks from people about their fellow users - anyone that makes statements like that either hasn’t or doesn’t work in a commercial design / development environment, or if they do, is someone I’d certainly not want to work on a project team with.
jQuery is a fantastic community and a great project, let’s work together to keep it that way by keeping feedback constructive and objective.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:25 am
Thank god for people like Ian - being one of the earliest negative commenters on the redesign, I felt kind of guilty being in the boo section. Still, I think people need to step away a bit and stop calling people names based on their expressed opinions. What is this, the 19th century?! C’mon people.
Having said that, I congratulate the team on making the community-based approach so centric to the whole redesign of the site. We appreciate and love that you are striving to bring the tool closer to us.
And to all the profane commenters lamenting on the removal of the rockstar banner - if *you* liked the banner, that doesn’t mean the whole community cares you do. A site is meant to attract a wider community of professionals, amateurs and hobbyists, not narrow-minded jackasses such as yourselves. And selling a site that features an icon that is frowned upon within the professional community (you know, like people that actually pay for you to play with JS!) makes it hard to sell the library to the people you have to work for. They’d rather you choose Prototype or Dojo, since they’re more clasically aligned with the whole API scene (even though they are laymen, but that’s how the ball rolls). With good reason!
August 31st, 2008 at 6:28 am
Um… a clarification is in order - my last parenthesis was aimed at bosses, not Prototype and Dojo. They have both earned merit in my eyes, and the clarification will hopefully avoid a flame war over it.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:54 am
[…] jQuery: » Death to JavaScript Rock Stars! […]
August 31st, 2008 at 8:52 am
I like the new design, but am I the only one seeing horrible banding in the blue background gradient? I’ve seen this happen before, and I believe it to be caused by lossy compression of a 1px-wide image (I’ve tested and confirmed this). Try using GIF or PNG for the background image, or a 5px-wide JPG.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:32 am
I like the new design!
Now the site just needs a discussion forum — That would make it much easier to help each other out in the community.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I’m surpise to find out that jQuery’s logo an now the website is linked to rock music! Rock music is known to be associated with devils, demons and sexual immoralities.
If you should research the history of these things you will see the truth behind a lot of these rock groups.
Why on earth would jQuery be inspired by the some that does not speaks to the upliftment of the human race?
Can someone please explain this to me so that I can understand the mindset behind the jQuery Team. Is it that everyone on the team is in agreement to linking jquery with rock music?
August 31st, 2008 at 12:07 pm
The story here is less about jQuery than the growing up of JavaScript.
For years JavaScript engineers have been saying, “No, JavaScript is not a toy, it’s actually a powerful dynamic language.”
The jQuery Rockstar, therefore, was completely off-message.
I’m not sure John Resig “gets” the ramifications of what he’s created yet. From his twitter comments he seems a little irritated by the realization that professional programmers need jQuery to appear to be a professional tool.
It’s always hard when something that was a playful and clever experiment grows up to be useful, and has to conduct itself in an adult way.
But he should be proud.
August 31st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I normally don’t get involved in such discussions anymore, but could not keep my mouth shut.
Not really sure why anyone complained about the rockstar. I thought it was a fresh approach. I was laughing when I heard that people brought the design down. Really, some people need to loosen up
That design never compromised any corporate promises or lead into a wrong impression of what jQuery was and will be. If you can not sell jQuery to your customers because its frontpage is to flashy, you are doing something wrong
For anyone actively using a javascript lib, what counts is its ability to reach goals, not how its frontpage looks.
Sorry but a flashier website just pulls in more people , than the current crippled left over. All that talk about script kiddies, that is how innovation happens, how new blood and new ideas enrich a project. Projects that close their door to the so called script kiddies, loose spirit fast. Not just talking here, I actually witnessed it multiple times.
I have been a jQuery fan from the beginning and sad to see a cool fresh design get pulled down by its community. I am sure the jQuery team stood behind the new design and that is what counts.
Well just my to cents.
And guys keep up the good work.
Cheers
Alexander
August 31st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
two cents that is
August 31st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
>>For anyone actively using a javascript lib, what counts is its ability to reach goals, not how its frontpage looks.
There are a lot of books on “branding,” if the events of the last couple days has you mystified.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Thanks ,nice to hear that, really new to me
Even though jQuery is community driven, the brand is a symbolic embodiment of what it stands for and is deeply connected to the creator/ development team itself, who decided on the new design in the first place. Its not like it was a bad design. But no need to get any deeper into that. Like I said above, just my 2 cents and no need to overvalue my comment 
Cheers
Alexander
August 31st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Ummm, for those that took offense to my comment, it was light hearted and you probably should not take it so seriously. (I think there are pills for stuff like that). I have been professionally in the industry for years now and with much success - and my clients/employers/co-workers have been extremely happy with my results.
That being said, Bring back the rockstar!!
@Ian and Klemen just reeelax. It’s gonna be o.k.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:31 pm
jive - I haven’t taken any offense from your comments.
My post was a general statement to the community and not a reaction to what you had to say - your comment just happened to proceed mine at them time of posting.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Would have been better to put all that effort into being sure the site is viewable in all browsers. As it is, it is not viewable in IE7 (and, no, ’switch to a real browser’ is not a solution).
As a guess, I would guess the white background box is a div that needs a ‘clear: both’ element so that the white box envelops the content, that evidently is floated.
As it is, there are raggedy white boxes around the ‘Main Page’ heading and the rest of the text is a completely unreadable blue on black.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
So where has Mr Rockstar gone? Permanent secondment to Guantanomo Bay, where he will be forced to read the source code for Prototype over and over again until his brain implodes with an audible wumph? Or has he gone to that great big recycling bin in the sky?
Poor b*stard…
August 31st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
[…] am on September 1, 2008 | # | Tags: dev, web Thank goodness, they dropped the Rockstar dude from the new jQuery site. Hewas a touch odd. […]
September 1st, 2008 at 6:02 am
Just a quick comment, I can’t spot it being mentioned before (except for an IE6 comment), great new site but it doesn’t work in IE7. More specifically the blog doesn’t work, probably a float issue. The white background doesn’t extend all the way down the page causing the blog to be unreadable. Which is obviously a shame!
September 1st, 2008 at 10:47 am
Fuck you. I hope you took offense to my comment. The rock star was just a design. It was fun and you bitches complained that it depicted an image the resembled a life. So you lifeless emo faggots decided to fucking bitch and moan and cry like the cunt nerds you are.
Coding is an art. It’s not for lifeless shitstains. Coding is a fucking art and Javascript / JQuery are making leaps and bounds in the realm of web software.
So quit your bitching, assholes.
September 1st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Love the new design, except for one thing; the latest plugin releases - why can one not go to the plugin description when clicking on the title ? Previous design you could use the breadcrumb (still quite annoying), now the only thing that you get to see is the description of the update, pretty useless, take me to the plugin description (with its real description, demo etc).
September 1st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
oh and by the way; the release descriptions are almost unreadable in camino (too small)
September 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
It’s been said here, but I’ll chime in as I still don’t see it fixed. Blog not working in IE7 can wait, but the more important issue is that the jQuery docs don’t display in IE7. I use FF3 for my browsing, but I keep Internet Explorer loaded on my other screen for testing and quickly looking up docs.
September 1st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
O Rock Star estava ótimo.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I’m thinking maybe ‘bad ass’ might of gone over better in the developer crowd than rock star, it doesn’t imply age. Hey even my former boss gave me a coffee mug with ‘Bad Ass’ right on it. So even in the business/corporate environment we can have some charater, right?
September 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Why do differences of opinions have to descend into obscenity-laden retorts? That damages the perception of credibility/respectability far more than the choice of artwork on the main page.
Too bad there is no ‘flag as offensive’ button.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:59 am
Perhaps it needed to be a short animation instead, about going from mild mannered nerd (professional image) to ROCKSTAR!!!!! (banner image that is now gone).
My question is, why does it have to be professional? Why should the look of the website matter if your trying to sell it to management and clients. Shouldn’t the features be the selling point? It’s not like you can actually SEE it on a website…
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
Reason, you sound like a rockstar. I’d totally hire you.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
pretty lame how you guys change ur sites design on the drop of a hat. grow some balls.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
I most feel bad for Varick Rosete, who spent his time and talent on such a great-looking image. Whether or not it should be on the site, his artwork was stunning.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Dude. Decaf.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Man, who care’s about the rockstar. I use jquery because it is, simply put, the best javascript library out there. As long as the documentation works, I’m golden.
Actually, i don’t think Decaf would cure Reason. I think a good ass beating is the only thing that can cure some people. Do you really think he would say that to someones face and get away with it? You can pretend to be anyone you want on the internet, and some people think their god. But he does have a point…
Cheers, guys. Good work on the site. I think you should a picture of Joe Satriani on the home page and say ‘… the satch of javascript libraries’.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:58 am
Just took note of the redesign; I’m a little sad I didn’t get to see the much maligned “rockstar” graphic before it was brought down. However, the new logo and site look excellent; I especially like the changes made so far to the Documentation section, and I’m looking forward to seeing more.
One thing I noticed: I didn’t go through the many responses to determine if this was brought up yet, but there’s a slight usability improvement that could be made. Change the “compression level” checkboxes to radio buttons, since they’re mutually exclusive choices. Unless, of course, you plan to expand the options to change this somehow.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 am
A few more things that could use improvement:
1. The info box popups on the home page overlap oddly and are generally a bit… janky.
2. The main menu links (Download, Documentation, Tutorials, etc.) in the header and footer could use a more pronounced hover behavior to indicate selection. The drop shadow is a subtle enough to be unnoticeable past 6″ from the screen. There’s an inconsistency between this and the hover over the topmost links (jQuery, Plugins, UI, etc.)
3. The links across the page content could also use a hover effect; slight color change, underline removal, whatever.
4. The Documentation link in the footer has a drop shadow on the text at all times, not just on hover. It seems to be the only one suffering from this bug.
Again, things look great.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Man! Wish I viewed the site earlier… the Rock Star Rocked!!! jQuery is so cool it can even bring back the 80s.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:21 am
[insert elitist comment regarding design target audiences that reveals more of a sense of self-importance than useful criticism]
[insert patronising assumption that Resig doesn’t understand “his” users]
Right. Next topic.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Death to the new design!
- This is a step back for the jquery image.
- The gradients are horrid and the logo is fuzzy.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I like the new look. I would just say the dark blue color looks cool but maybe a little less on the dark but no big deal. Also it was abit confusing because I’m so use to the old jquery logo. The new one threw me off for a second. Personally I hated the old wiki style layout it was slow and sometimes a bit annoying to use. Wiki’s are ironically not all the spetacular in regards to navigation. Only something a programmer could love. Speed is great on this new site.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the rock star motif when it was up. Right now, while the new design is attractive, it’s a little too reminiscent of every other Web 2.0 site out there.
I’d love to see some kind of mascot, odd gimmick, or other differentiating part of the design. After all, jQuery is different, its site should be too.
Props on the easter egg. Contra cheat code FTW!
September 4th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
expected a little more from the most excellent javascript library on the web. logo is fugly! horrible font imho.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:13 am
i’d prefer to be a javascript ninja. ; ) really!!!
September 5th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Well done Jquery team, Menus, colors, layout, all so nice. the site is very intuitive and looks great. @Ian, some great points made.
Marketing, or focus groups can help heaps. I have been part of a few steering groups for open source projects, and always had fun.
Keep up the great work!
September 8th, 2008 at 3:17 am
i still miss my “red” Jquery
September 8th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Love the new site redesign. Would have loved to have seen that “Rock Star” dude, but I came accross the redesign too late. However it sounds like you made the right decision to remove it.
New design is great and very up to date. Like the fact that you didn’t go for a “WOW WEB 2.0″ look, and instead went for subtle gradients, clean lines, neutral colours and brighter tone’s for emphasis. Great job.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I don’t care about designs.If jQuery uses a single page with just those download links to helpful resources,it will work for me.I only care how the thing (jquery.js) is working.Does it fulfill my demand?Is it the most useful library?I think all the answers will be a big ‘YES’.I was really shocked reading those responses on the rockstar logo,banner thing.So all of you use jquery because this site looked professional?LMAO!!!Won’t you use it anymore if the site is changed to an ugly design?Well,here is the sad part of making anything ’so much user friendly’.When the things will be easy to use,it will attract many people(majority of them will be non-professionals).They don’t know whats inside and how it works,they will just see how the site looks(as they are non-professionals).They even have to show their clients jquery.com to get the permission(!!!!) to use jquery.When I work on a project,it depends on me what I will use.If you are client you just check how the things working and if there is any error.It is really a useless community who don’t look inside,don’t respect the hard works,just depends on the outlook.I hope jquery.com will be redesigned to give it more professional look so those non-professional end users get the feeling of being professionals when they come here.
OMG!!!I am loosing my professional mood because of this non-professional look of jquery.com,it makes me to forget all my skills
September 14th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Rızayı İlahi, İlayı Kelimetullah, Hizmet-i İmaniye ve Kur’aniye…
September 14th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Bu da kehf için…
Terör ve terörizm ile ilgili yazılar için…
September 19th, 2008 at 9:25 am
PLEASE do something about the docs part of the site. it’s down or unbearably slow to load 75% of the time.
September 21st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
[…] So I decided to rework the layout of the homepage in hopes of facilitating what will soon be a full fleged blog, and not just a fancy home page. Now, I wanted to make the home page super fancy with some sort of animated effects, and so I had to choose a proper and serious JavaScript framework. Having unfortunately seen the JavaScript rockstar’s rise and epic fall on jQuery’s recently redesigned homepage, I thought I would pay tribute by choosing jQuery as my tool of choice. Of course there were other legitimate reasons, but now you can witness the scrolling goodness brought to you by jQuery. Having recently been involved with Prototype, I have found the jump to jQuery to be straightfoward. There will be more exciting features debuting in the coming weeks! […]
October 6th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
@Sam Hill - maybe we should listen to this guy, or perhaps he should redesign the jQuery website himself, since he just complains about everything. I get really sick of comments, like from this guy, from the community.
And really, if you base a framework off of a websites design and/or graphics, and try to play that “it’s hard to sell this to clients” card, you are just dumb. You don’t sell JavaScript to anyone, you make their site for them, and you make it work, it’s YOU who has the problem, not your client.
Get with the current century folks, and lighten up. Seriously. A lot of you are just a big f’n drag, and honestly, you annoy me to the ‘nth degree. I try and keep positive with what’s new in web technology, but it just seems like everyone wants to bitch and complain. Give it up, go plant a tree or something.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Cheers, i’ve got pictures of my new emo hair style
on http://tinyurl.com/59ps64