The Problem
I've already created quite a few jQuery plugins in the past, at work, and for personal use, and in many of them, there are certain parts of code that always tend to repeat themselves.
One of these parts of code has to do with element positioning calculations relative to another element.
For example, when creating a plug in for a drop-down menu, or a tooltip, you can't avoid having a nasty piece of code in there, that all it does is calculate the element's position relative to the element we clicked on or hovered above.
I don't think there's any need for me to post an example of this, you probably know what I mean. This is usually the least most maintainable part of code in the plug in and the least easy to understand.
The Solution
I finally decided to extract this ugly piece of code into a nice jQuery plug in that will hold all the dirty work calculations, and will leave you with a nice, clean and understandable piece of code inside your plug in.
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
$('.PutThisDiv').nextTo('.ThisOtherDiv', {position:'right', shareBorder:'top'});
});
</script>
This plug in is hosted on Google code: https://code.google.com/p/next-to/ (project name: 'next-to')
At the project page, you will find more sample usages, usage explanations, the source code and a minified version.
