It's not a problem at all.
I ran into this at one point myself. The "problem" that there are multiple plugins doing the "same" thing and the uncertainty of which was the right one for me. It turns out this is just part of the learning phase, I think.
As you start seriously looking at these similar plugins, you start to notice differences - sometimes blindingly obvious, sometimes very subtle. These differences is what "make or break" the suitability of the plugin for your needs.
The bonus is that because there are similar and sometimes competing plugins, they ALL get better (or get left behind...). But, there is no way any one plugin could ever be suitable for every situation they may be used in. Coding is not a cookie-cutter type environment. Sure there are some things that are incredibly common and have a number of quick-fix options. But almost always these then need to be "tweaked" to fit anyways - sometimes substantially.
The better solutions - as determined by the community, and the active involvement of the authors (thereby gaining respect, trust, karma, etc) - tend to become recognized and/or adopted into the "core" set of plugins. Some of these have been absorbed into the UI project, and I suspect more to follow (autocomplete and cluetip anyone? :) )
My final take on this... Either you find a plugin that meets all your needs, or you have to write one yourself. Each coder has to weigh the time/cost factors and make a decision for their environment. There is no one answer to rule them all.
My thoughts. Shawn zweb wrote:
I really like jquery but I found one big issue with Jquery. There are too many plugins for same task and it is very difficult to find a good plugin that really works. For example, I am looking for lightbox equivalent plugin for jquery. I have tried 3 plugins so far and none of them is good and matches anywhere close to the original lightbox plugin. I had similar problems earlier with other UI plugins I was looking for. Is there anyway to solve this problem? Is Jquery community trying to address this problem?
