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#4 in jQueryUdemyWeb DevelopmentPaid courseAll Levels

jQuery and AJAX for Beginners - The Definitive Guide (2014) (Udemy.com)

Make dynamic websites using the jQuery JavaScript library

Created by: Zenva Academy

Last updated August 2024

Our take

Based on the ratings of 1,748 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in August 2024. No course pays to be reviewed.

A free, two and a half hour introduction to jQuery and AJAX from Zenva Academy, taught by Pablo Farias Navarro. The syllabus shows 38 short lectures across nine sections: selectors, DOM traversal, events, DOM manipulation, effects, then a 38 minute AJAX block and a short forms section. It was published in 2014 and is built around jQuery 2.x, though Udemy lists an update in August 2024. It suits people who already know basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript and want the jQuery essentials without sitting through a long bootcamp. Nearly 29,000 students have enrolled and it holds a 4.5 rating from about 1,750 reviews.

Reviewers like how direct it is. Several call it concise and to the point, and one says the teacher speaks well and doesn't waste words. The downloadable example files with HTML, CSS and JS get a specific thank you. The complaints are consistent too. There are no quizzes, coding exercises or assignments, so a few students wanted something to test themselves on. Others wanted more on why the code works, not just how. One reviewer had trouble setting up a local server and got no help from the course, and another mentions videos that cut off abruptly. Three-star reviews are fairly common: 221 in the breakdown.

For a free course the value is obvious. It costs nothing, and the AJAX and JSON material takes it further than a selectors and animations primer. Just go in knowing that jQuery is older tooling now and this material dates from the 2.x days. If you need a quick, structured jQuery refresher before touching legacy code or a WordPress theme, it does the job. If you want projects or feedback, pair it with something else.

Best forDevelopers who know basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript and want the jQuery and AJAX essentials in an afternoon, for free.
Skip it ifYou want quizzes, projects or graded exercises, or you need modern JavaScript rather than jQuery.

Pros

  • Free, and reviewers say it is straight to the point with little wasted time
  • Downloadable practical example files with HTML, CSS and JS, which a reviewer singled out as exactly what they expected
  • Dedicated 38 minute AJAX section covering JSON, form submission and cache issues
  • Pablo Farias Navarro explains clearly and speaks well, according to several reviews

Cons

  • No quizzes, coding exercises or assignments to test what you learned
  • Built around jQuery 2.x and first published in 2014; explains how more than why
  • One reviewer mentions videos cutting off abruptly, another got no help with local server setup
Very nice course. Straight to the point. Concise. The only drawback is some videos are cutting abruptly sometimes.
Jean-Jacques Kujawa, a student

Listed as all levels, but it assumes basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript; true beginners found some parts hard.

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What you will learn

  • Master the fundamentals of the jQuery library
  • Learn AJAX programming

Course content

9 sections · 38 lectures · 2.6 hours of video 2 articles

  1. 1Introduction 3 free previews5 lectures · 13 min
  2. 2Selection4 lectures · 14 min
  3. 3DOM Traversing4 lectures · 15 min
  4. 4Working with Events6 lectures · 29 min
  5. 5DOM Manipulation4 lectures · 18 min
  6. 6Animations and Effects4 lectures · 14 min
  7. 7AJAX7 lectures · 38 min
  8. 8Forms3 lectures · 14 min
  9. 9Summary1 lecture · 3 min

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • Web developers of all backgrounds, including beginners, who want to update their skills and learn jQuery from scratch

What you need before you start

  • Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript

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Course Description

Websites and HTML5 apps need to be interactive, dynamic and smooth to the end user.

jQuery is the world’s most used JavaScript library to create rich web applications that just feel natural to use. In this comprehensive course you’ll learn how to use jQuery to work with the DOM, use events, effects and animations, AJAX, JSON and to create interactive AJAX forms.

This course is 100% jQuery 2.x compliant!

This course is taught by Pablo Farias Navarro, founder of ZENVA and web application developer. Pablo has been using jQuery since 2007. More than 20,000 students are learning how to code with our courses, in particular our Programming for Entrepreneurs course series. This course builds on our previous HTML and JavaScript free courses and takes you to the next step, which is to make your website or HTML5 interactive and dynamic.

Some of the things you will learn in this course:

  • When to use jQuery 1.x or 2.x.
  • CSS selectors and DOM traversing functions in depth to find any element you want.
  • DOM manipulation to add or remove custom HTML content anywhere, whenever you decide.
  • Working with events to create interactive sites.
  • Listen to changes in select dropdowns and checkboxes.
  • jQuery animations and effects. Slide, fade, show, hide.
  • AJAX to load dynamic HTML from the server.
  • Working with JSON from the server.
  • Interactive forms that display extra fields according to the values of other fields.
  • AJAX form submission the easy way.
  • Dealing with cache issues in AJAX requests.
  • Learn jQuery in a 2.x compliant manner.

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Instructor Details

Zenva Academy

Trusted by over 1 million learners and developers, Zenva provides world-class training on in-demand programming skills covering game creation, software development, AI virtual reality and web development.

Our e-learning platform Zenva Academy is the leading place to upskill, learn and gain key tech skills for the innovation economy through self-paced online courses. Our curriculum is organized about Mini-Degrees™ which cover a wide range of technical subjects and include video, interactive quizzes and project files for enhanced learning.

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Reviews

4.5

1,748 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Ramesh M on 1/26/2020

The course is useful. But the jQuery library used here is rather outdated. The tutor is engaging and keeps us focussed on the video and the source code is quite simple, you can use them if you are a beginner in jQuery especially if someone has just dropped a legacy app in your task list for maintenance In summary, this is still quite useful especially if you are maintaining a legacy code-base or need a quick overview of jQuery.

By Dane Tyler on 11/27/2019

This is a brilliant course. It's concise, to the point, provides the essential information required, and is a great jumping off point for deeper learning. I wanted a bit more in the last couple of sections on how to handle error messages, but overall, this is fantastic. The ONLY criticism I may have - and it wasn't enough to detract anything from my rating - is the instructor seemed to be rushing through the material and stammering, tripping over his words. He should probably slow down and maybe even consider doing the voice over separately from the coding. I very much enjoyed the side anecdotes and comments he provided, the clear depth of knowledge, and the competence of delivery. A great course I'll recommend to anyone I know looking to pick up a bit of jQuery. Bravo!

By Robert Darling on 7/17/2019

I got more out of this course than I have from various paid courses! This seemed to be the course I've needed to find all along. I've watched a few tutorials on jquery but at the end of them never seemed to quite grasp what I needed to know to actually use it. This one has made understanding the basic principles easy to understand in my mind and I have already been able to apply a lot of what I've learned. Thank you for this course. Excellent.

By Kęstutis Reimeris on 1/15/2019

First of all thank you for the free course. When I get something for free, I do not feel good about any critics on the GIFT. Still, I believe constructive criticism may be very helpful, therefore here it is: on quite many points of the course I was missing in depth explanation on "why" and "what if" and "how" etc., so I would rather shorten the scope of the course, but would dive deeper into important details. Thanks anyway and best wishes!

By Khaled Kachkorian on 12/1/2018

I totally enjoyed the course. I definitely have previous knowledge about the subject, but always disorganized. with this course, i have organize my thoughts and clear a lot of fuzzy things. the sections are small and full of action. I did not got bore, and that is very important for me, because usually, I have problems to continue a course till the end. this course was dynamic. thank you zenva for everything, you have proved that your material worth to follow. good luck always.

By Kingshuk Mukherjee on 2/17/2017

I'm at the intermediate level of jquery skills as I have had some opportunity to use it in my work space however there were few things that I knew how to use but didn't have the clarity on why it's supposed to be used that way. I have much better clarity now. Pablo's explanations' are clear and he illustrates everything with examples. Doesn't just throw it in the air. And his preparation for the course is amazing. He created dummy webpages to exactly suit the topic he was going to cover.

By Pete Wond on 8/29/2016

I have been working as a PHP web developer, mostly in WordPress and dabbling in Laravel/Symfony/CakePHP, for two or so years and took this course as a way to properly understand the basics of jQuery rather than guessing my way through editing scripts on the brownfield sites I work on. I thought the course materials and examples were sufficient for a basic guide and I definitely learnt things from it. However this is quite an expensive course and I have taken cheaper courses that contain quizzes and build projects to test and measure your progress which this course currently lacks. Overall I was happy to pick this up in with a discount coupon and work quickly through over a weekend, not sure I could recommend at full price though...

By Vikas Bharti on 3/19/2016

Pablo is really great in teaching the technology and he uses it with all the examples. In the courses, he also tells you the issues and the bugs and provides a solution for it. He know all the intricacies and the issues that we can face while coding. Its because of his experience. but i can tell you he leaves no stone unturned in teaching everything he knows and his knowledge is really commendable. I would sincerely advice to go for this course as its better than all the Jquery course available on udemy.

By Allen Williamson on 3/4/2016

I enjoyed this course, and found it quite helpful as a jumpstart working with JavaScript. Mr. Navarro uses excellent examples (I thought) for getting an understanding how JS works in applications you might come across on the web everyday. I believe this is a great 1st step in learning JS, which is quite expansive.

By Gary Mann on 9/23/2015

I learned a huge amount from this course, it covers the whole range of JQuery functionality and the lecturer explains everything in a clear manner with good worked examples. But I had already done another, shorter, introduction to JQuery course before I took this one, and I might have struggled with this one had I not taken it. The pace is rather fast, and it does assume knowledge of JavaScript (JSON, events etc). I would recommend that absolute newcomers to JQuery spend a few dollars on a more basic course. But having done that , you would learn a great deal from this one, it covers so much ground. There is so much material here that I will be able to use in my job.

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Overall Score : 90 / 100