jQuery Cycle Plugin is a lightweight jQuery plugin which offers an easy way to create a slideshow of images for your website.

The plugin provides a bunch of different effects for cycling between each slide, from a simple fade to the more elaborate ’shuffle effect’, you can choose to cycle through each slide on a time delay or for it to be initiated by the user through a click.

The jquery Cycle Plugin does not only cycle through images but it can also cycle through <divs> which can contain text and images, allowing for more freedom of what goes into each slide of the slideshow.

I prefer the fading option and mainly use it for small advertisements on a page or sometimes as the main focus of a website (such as small accommodation sites). The effect is not as clean or visually sharp as a flash movie but it takes a lot less time to implement and does not require flash, therefore it will display in android devices and on the iPhone with no problems.

Implementing the code is easy, list the images inside a <div> and then specify the plugin to cycle through that <div> by using the small piece of code provided on the jQuery Cycle Plugin website.

jQuery Cycle is easy to set up, run and configure, while the end result can help give a website that extra feel of professionalism. I am a big fan of the jQuery Cyle plugin and have used it in quite a few websites to great effect.

Download jQuery Cycle Plugin at:

jQueryCycle