[jQuery] Help Creating jQuery UI style plugins

[jQuery] Help Creating jQuery UI style plugins


Hey all,
I've gone through some of the more obvious resources on creating
jQuery Plugins (Mike Alsop's Plugin pattern, the documentation on
docs.jquery.com, etc.) and I think I have a handle on things. There
are a few things for which I can't seem to find a good explanation.
First, I notice that much of the jQuery UI widgets make use of the
dataCache (http://docs.jquery.com/Core/data#name) to keep references
to things but I can't find anything that describes how or why you'd
want to do such a thing.
Second, the latest versions of jQuery UI (1.5?) uses the same sort of
overloading that jQuery itself uses to simplfy the interaface. See,
for example, the interface for Tabs (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Tabs).
I like this pattern and I could implement it myself, but I'm hoping
that there is a standard, simple way to implement it.
Can anyone help me with these two things?
Adam