Mootools, JQuery, YUI, Dojo...

[santa]

I need to put some sexyness on a website. Just FX, probable a toggle slide and maybe lightbox. Any ideas on which one does it the easiest way?

[quasi888]

YUI has a several little widgets, including a slider, and a lot of "building blocks" from which you can develop your own customized widgets. But no out-of-the-box solution for a light box. If you're JS-proficient, you should be able to figure it out though. YUI is well-documented. The other thing I like about YUI is that the widgets degrade gracefully if users turn off Javascript.

If you like YUI, take a look at ExtJS tool is based on YUI (and can be implemented independently OR coexist with YUI) and has some pretty cool things, but most of its stuff is along the lines of application UI infrastructure (tab pabels, grids, trees) rather than outright whiz-bang widgets.

Dojo can be pretty intimidating, and should be thought of more as a JS development framework than a library of widgets you can instantly deploy.

Mootools is more limited in scope in that it concentrates more on ready-to-use widgets and effects, but if it has everything you need, why not? Lightweight and easy to deploy.