This project is not mantained anymore. I recommend using RubaXa's Sortable or voidberg's fork instead.

Demos & Documentation

• Less than 1KB (minified and gzipped).
• Built using native HTML5 drag and drop API.
• Supports both list and grid style layouts.
• Similar API and behaviour to jquery-ui sortable plugin.
• Works in IE 5.5+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 3+, Safari 3+ and, Opera 12+.

Use sortable method to create a sortable list:

$('.sortable').sortable();

Use .sortable-dragging and .sortable-placeholder CSS selectors to change the styles of a dragging item and its placeholder respectively.

Use sortupdate event if you want to do something when the order changes (e.g. storing the new order):

$('.sortable').sortable().bind('sortupdate', function(e, ui) {
    //ui.item contains the current dragged element.
    //Triggered when the user stopped sorting and the DOM position has changed.
});

Use items option to specifiy which items inside the element should be sortable:

$('.sortable').sortable({
    items: ':not(.disabled)'
});

Use handle option to restrict drag start to the specified element:

$('.sortable').sortable({
    handle: 'h2'
});

Setting forcePlaceholderSize option to true, forces the placeholder to have a height:

$('.sortable').sortable({
    forcePlaceholderSize: true 
});

Use connectWith option to create connected lists:

$('#sortable1, #sortable2').sortable({
    connectWith: '.connected'
});

To remove the sortable functionality completely:

$('.sortable').sortable('destroy');

To disable the sortable temporarily:

$('.sortable').sortable('disable');

To enable a disabled sortable:

$('.sortable').sortable('enable');

The API is compatible with jquery-ui. So you can use jquery-ui as a polyfill in older browsers:

yepnope({
    test: Modernizr.draganddrop,
    yep: 'jquery.sortable.js',
    nope: 'jquery-ui.min.js',
    complete: function() {
        $('.sortable').sortable().bind('sortupdate', function(e, ui) {
            //Store the new order.
        }
    }
});

Released under the MIT license.