At Web Designer Inc we’re all about working smart and plugins are smart. Plugins make life easier.

No wonder we are frequently asked what jQuery plugins we like the best. In general, we like plugins that are easy, handy, simple, and help us get the job done flawlessly.

Here’s a rundown of our favorite jQuery plugins.

MASONRY

Masonry is a complete cascading grid layout library.  Just as a mason fits stones together optimally, Masonry works by placing elements in the best space based on the amount of available vertical space.  The sizing and styling of the items is handled by your CSS.

SLICK CAROUSEL

Tagged the “last carousel you’ll ever need,” it lives up to the hype. We love this plugin because it’s fully responsive and gives you full functionality for your galleries. Slick uses CSS when available, but retains full function when it’s not. You can easily add, remove, and filter your slides as well as having syncing and autoplay functions. The jQuery plugin is free while its WordPress cousin is not.

SWIPER CAROUSEL

Swiper is a modern mobile slider for touch. It was designed for the iOS world but is perfectly at home in Android, Windows Phone 8, and modern desktop browsers. Swiper isn’t for every platform – it is purely touch.  It doesn’t require any special libraries, so it is small and fast. All of the regular transition effects, including parallax transitions, are supported.

CHART.JS

Users need charts to make complex data easily digestible and you need a plugin to make charts without difficulty. Chart.js is a simple and easy to use plugin for charting. This plugin allows you to mix chart types and supports transitions for stunning animations.  Render data eight different ways and be confident that your results will be rendered properly across all modern browsers.

ISOTOPE

Isotope is another plugin for grid layout.  It’s flexible enough to be used by sites as different as Whole Foods and Biodroid.  Isotope can arrange your elements based on data or hide/show elements based on filtering.  The sizing and styling of your items is controlled by your CSS. Open source and commercial licenses are available.

PACKERY

Here’s another grid layout plugin we love. Packery uses a bin-packing algorithm to fill in empty gaps. Use Packery for intelligent order or let it go wild and random. Drag your elements around or fix them in place. It’s perfect for using with your Masonry galleries. Free open source licenses are available.  For commercial purposes, you will need to buy a license.

SKROLLR

Finally, a parallax scrolling plugin for the masses! Skrollr lets you transform elements by scaling, skewing, and rotating. You can set easing for each property and define your own easing functions. Animating colors is a bonus we just love. Did we mention that it’s free?

PARALLAX.JS

Parallax.js was really designed for smart devices only, but it does have some functionality with a mouse. It reacts to the orientation of the device offsetting layers depending on their depth. If no gyroscope is present, it will work off the position of the cursor. Over ten behaviors can be set up for any parallax event.

FANCYBOX

This tool gives an easy and elegant way to add zooming to your images, html content, and multimedia elements on your page.  Supports single images as well as galleries. FancyBoxis easy to use, easy to customize, and it’s free!

But wait, there’s more!

Now that you’ve taken a look at our favorite jQuery plugins, check out three of our favorite libraries. Documents, graphics, and animations are all covered in our top three favs.  See if you agree.

D3.js. This JavaScript library lets you manipulate documents based on data. Use D3 to bring life to your data and take advantage of modern browser capability all without tying yourself to a proprietary framework. Bind data to a DOM and then apply data-driven transformations.

Raphael. This library makes your work with vector graphics much simpler. Raphael provides an adapter to make vector art cross-browser compatible. Who can argue with that? Every graphic object is a DOM, so you can attach event handlers or modify them later.

GSAP. The definitive animation library is at Green Sock. The Green Sock Animation Platform is robust and fully supported.  Silky smooth animations are possible, even with mobile applications, because GSAP is fast.