jQuery Cross-Browser Performance Issues

Question

I am wrapping up a project in which I used jQuery for the first time. I loved working with the library, and thought I understood one of the benefits was cross-browser compatibility. I had an unpleasant surprise waiting for me when I began testing the site in IE6 and IE7 because in many many instances, the JavaScript (which is not terribly complex) does not work.

Can anyone offer some general comments on what jQuery does and does not do from a cross-browser standpoint?

Any tips for debugging jQuery/JS in IE?

Answer 1

I've seen very, very few differences in behavior across browsers. That said, jQuery is only good so long as you're using jQuery - once you step outside of built-in event handling and DOM traversal, you're gonna end up running into browser incompatibilities anyway.

VS2008 works reasonably well for debugging JS in IE; without further information on the sorts of problems you're encountering, i can't really suggest anything else.

Answer 2

The only xbrowser issues ive had is with keyup/press/down

Answer 3

Here's a couple resources for you:

IE Web Developer Toolbar - This utility is not nearly as powerful, as useful, or as reliable as Firebug, but it can at least help you see into the rendered DOM on IE. This tool is available for IE6 and IE7.

Firebug Lite - Speaking of Firebug, do check this out. It attempts to recreate something close to Firebug for IE but does it entirely through a javascript bookmarklet.

Lastly, as Shog9 suggested, Visual Studio can be a good way to debug Javascript in IE. Sometimes. Since it's slow, Windows-only, and expensive (for some)... I'm not quick to recommend it.