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JavaScript

Posted by Victor Ruiz
Victor Ruiz
16,570 Points

Can anyone explain to me what the '$' mean in a javascript file?

So I'm using flexslider and I have something like this:

$('#peopleslider').flexslider({ animation: "slide", controlNav: false, animationLoop: false, slideshow: false,

    prevText: "<i class='fa fa-caret-left fa-lg'></i>",
    nextText: "<i class='fa fa-caret-right fa-lg'></i>",


    itemWidth: 175,
    itemMargin: 0,
    minItems: 1,
    maxItems: 5,

    asNavFor: '.flex-active-slide'

});

simpler form this: $().flexslider({ });

Sorry the js is no being read correctly.

2 Answers

Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points
Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points

Hi Victor,

the $ sign is another way of writing jQuery, so you could have

jQuery('#peopleslider').flexslider({ animation: "slide", controlNav: false, animationLoop: false, slideshow: false,

instead of

$('#peopleslider').flexslider({ animation: "slide", controlNav: false, animationLoop: false, slideshow: false,

It is a place holder for the function you are writing out, and when you have it in place, the jQuery library is called on your function. So in this case the HTML element with id of "peopleslider" will be modified using the jQuery you have in your function.

I hope that helps your understanding.

Stephen O'Connor
Stephen O'Connor
22,291 Points
Stephen O'Connor
Stephen O'Connor
22,291 Points

It's not the technical term but I think of it as 'look for' or 'search for' on the page, so $('.footer') would essentially mean jQuery would 'look for' the element that has the class footer and then do something with it. The more technical term can be found here. Hope this helps.