Officially launched just a few days ago, Script Junkie is the new blog from Microsoft offering relevant and expert advice to web developers. Among these experts, Fuel Your Coding Editor Doug Neiner has written one of the first articles for the site.

In the article Doug explains how to build a stateful plugin,a plugin that maintains its own state and often acts to trigger certain events, using the jQuery UI Widget Factory. This tool works as a framework to assist the development of a plugin, creating helpful, consistent structure within which to work.

The Widget Factory, like many frameworks, is a tool to assist in rapid, maintainable development. Doug goes through a specific example, creating a countdown timer for a Content Management System, to show how to set and use options, initialize and destroy the widget as well as trigger custom events.

In Doug’s own words: “[Widget Factory] is really an amazing tool available to jQuery plugin developers and the best way to learn to use it is by… you guessed it… just using it!”

Look out for more Doug’s articles over at Script Junkie, and be sure to check out his more regular coding advice at Fuel Your Coding. Congratulations on the article, Doug!