Question

After reading jQuery’s CSS documentation, it doesn’t look like it offers any advantages over just getting the Javascript element directly and manipulating its CSS by updating the property. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

You should use the jQuery css method, it provides many benefits:

• You can set multiple css properties inside a single .css call.
• You can pass integer values and it will automatically convert to px.
• It normalizes many cross-browser issues. For example, I can just use .css('opacity', 0.8) without having to test if the user is using IE and applying ugly alpha workarounds.
• I find $('#foo').css('prop', 'value') more organized and readable than
  $('#foo')[0].style.prop = 'value';

Let alone .css provides other jQuery’s functionalities, such as chaining methods and automatically iterating through element arrays.