title: jQuery UI downloads - what are each of the directories in the archive holding?
body: <p>(and why do you think the jQuery team are unable or unwilling to write decent documentation?;)</p>
  
  <p>For example, go to <a href="http://jqueryui.com/download/all/" rel="nofollow">http://jqueryui.com/download/all/</a> and download either</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><a href="http://jqueryui.com/resources/download/jquery-ui-1.10.3.zip" rel="nofollow">jQuery UI 1.10.3 (source, demos, themes, tests)</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://jqueryui.com/resources/download/jquery-ui-themes-1.10.3.zip" rel="nofollow">jQuery UI 1.10.3 Themes</a></li>
  </ol>
  
  <h3>#1</h3>
  
  <ul>
  <li>There is a <code>MANIFEST</code> file.</li>
  <li>There is a <code>README.md</code> file but no explanation of the the layout of the archive.</li>
  <li>There are several files with a JSON extension e.g. <code>ui.accordion.jquery.json</code>. They contain some information about the particular UI widget. <strong>I don't know what these are used for, do you know?</strong></li>
  <li>A file named <code>package.json</code>. It seems just to be some library info in JSON format. <strong>Do you know what this is for?</strong> I suspect it's linked to the other <code>.json</code> files, but who knows?</li>
  <li>There is an directory named <code>external</code> that holds javascripts. <strong>Do you know what this is for?</strong></li>
  <li>There is the <code>jquery-1.9.1.js</code> file. No minified version.</li>
  <li>A licence in <code>MIT-LICENSE.txt</code>.</li>
  <li>An <code>AUTHORS.txt</code> file, which contains the names of the contributors, that are repeated several times throughout the archive. Not one of them managed to list what's in the archive thoroughly though ;)</li>
  <li>A <code>demos</code> directory with what appears to be <a href="http://jqueryui.com/demos/" rel="nofollow">all the demos from the website.</a></li>
  <li>A <code>Gruntfile.js</code> that the README says is used to build jQuery. Whatever "building" jQuery means.</li>
  <li>A <code>tests</code> directory.</li>
  <li>There is a directory named <code>ui</code> that seems to hold all the jQuery UI effects javascripts, also minified in a subdirectory, and an <code>i18n</code> subdirectory for those widgets that need internationalization.</li>
  <li>There is a directory named <code>themes</code>. In it there is a subdir called <code>base</code> that holds the base theme stylesheet. This subdir also contains an <code>images</code> dir for the base theme. It also holds stylesheets for several of the effects e.g. <code>jquery.ui.accordion.css</code>. <strong>Do these only work for the base theme or can they be applied to any theme? If not, why does only base have them?</strong> (see below) There is also a <code>minified</code> subdir which has minified versions of all the stylesheets.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <h3>#2</h3>
  
  <ul>
  <li>The archive contains a <code>MANIFEST</code> file</li>
  <li>but no README.</li>
  <li>An AUTHORS file.</li>
  <li>A <code>package.json</code> file with a small amount of information about the project.</li>
  <li>It has several themes but no <code>base</code>.</li>
  <li>There are no effects/widget files in either the root directory or each of the themes' directories.</li>
  <li>Each theme directory contains an <code>images</code> subdirectory with image files associated with that theme, a <code>jquery-ui.css</code> stylesheet, a minified version of this, and a <code>jquery.ui.theme.css</code>. The <code>jquery-ui.css</code> in each theme directory is different to each directory. <strong>Do you know what each of these files is for? Why aren't all the specific changes in the <code>jquery.ui.theme.css</code> file?</strong></li>
  </ul>
  
  <h3>Why do I need to know this?</h3>
  
  <p>This may come up in the comments so I'll answer it here. I've written a couple of libraries to help with deploying the correct version / theme in Ruby Rack projects, <a href="https://github.com/yb66/rack-jquery_ui" rel="nofollow">Rack JQueryUI</a> and <a href="https://github.com/yb66/rack-jquery_ui-themes" rel="nofollow">Rack JQueryUI Themes</a>. Every time there's a version change of jQuery UI I have to deal with these undocumented archives, that also seem to change in layout / contents between versions. I've not had good feedback when speaking with the jQuery team - I find they are lamentable at documentation and it's obviously not a priority for them, they'd rather be renaming functions or something - so I'd rather just have someone helpful answer me here, and this will make a good place to keep it (out of their reach, so to speak).</p>
  
  <p>I'm most interested in the questions around the theme directories as that will directly help me right now, but I've extended the scope of the question because I believe it will help others and I am curious.</p>