Whilst writing a new timesheet application I added a function to 'lock' an entire dataset, IE stop a user from editing the form on the page.

I'd spent a lot of time layout the timesheet page, designing the form, and help text etc. I didn't really want to destroy the visuals if a record was locked, I wanted it just the same, but 'non-active'.

This is where JQuery is simply awesome. Understanding 'selectors' and the power they can give you, with only very simple construction is key.

In this example imagine a page that has a div within it, the div has a id of 'divLabel'. Within that div there is a form. The code below will disable all the input elements within that div. Every single one of them. In one line of code. How cool is that.

What its actually doing is adding the disabled attribute to each input, then setting the value to 'true'.

Get familiar with how JQuery selectors work, the docs are here: http://api.jquery.com/category/selectors/