Problem Statement

The Custom Forms module currently loads an additional, legacy version of jQuery (1.5.1) and an outdated validation library (1.8.1) alongside the modern jQuery 3.6.0 used by the rest of the site. This creates:

• Redundant network requests: Loading two versions of jQuery on the same page.
• Memory overhead: Two separate jQuery instances running in the browser.
• Code complexity: Have to manage two different jQuery aliases ($j and $jcf).

Proposed Solution

• Remove the redundant loading of jQuery 1.5.1 and unify the Custom Forms module on the site-wide jQuery 3.6.0.
• Update the jQuery Validation plugin to version 1.19.5 .
• Update customforms-validation.js to use modern ES6 syntax and the global $j instance.
• Add a lightweight jQuery.browser polyfill to maintain support for the legacy qTip library without needing a separate jQuery 1.x instance.
• Delete the unused jquery-1.5.1.min.js file from the repository.

Alternatives Considered

No response

Additional Context

This change specifically modernizes the templates/customforms/ module, which was one of the few remaining areas using Python 2 frontend dependencies.
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