Using a plugin

Using a jQuery plugin is very straightforward. We need to simply obtain the plugin code, reference the plugin from our HTML, and invoke the new capabilities from our own scripts.

We can easily demonstrate these tasks using the jQuery Cycle plugin. This plugin, by Mike Alsup, allows us to quickly transform a static set of page elements into an interactive slideshow. Like many popular plugins, it can handle complex, advanced needs well, but can also hide this complexity when our requirements are more straightforward.

Downloading and referencing the Cycle plugin

To install any jQuery plugins, we'll use the npm package manager. This is the de facto tool for declaring package dependencies for modern JavaScript projects. For example, we can use a package.json file to declare that we need jQuery, and a specific set of jQuery plugins. 

Note

For help on installing npm, see https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/what-is-npm. For help on initializing a package.json file, see https://docs...