Color Fades for Success or Failure
One of the more popular Ajax effects is the color flash or fade (to differentiate the effect from the Adobe functionality) that signals some form of successful (or not) update. Usually these are associated with data updates, but they can be used for any activity where you want to signal to the application user to pay attention that something is happening.
A fade changes the background color of an element or group of elements, moving from a darker shade to a lighter, and typically back again. The fade can consist of variations of one color, such as flashing red to signal a deletion, or a yellow fade to create a highlight. Multiple colors can also be used, for instance, a blue to yellow fade to signal a positive outcome.
Regardless of the exact effect used, one thing all color fades require is the use of timers to create the necessary animation. Before getting into the code necessary to implement a fade, we'll do a quick refresher on timers and animation.
Tip
If you're comfortable with your understanding of timers and animations, feel free to skip the next section.
Timers and Animations
JavaScript includes a couple of different ways of controlling animations. One is to use the setTimeout method, which is invoked once and has to be reset if multiple timer events are needed. The other is setInterval, which refires in consecutive intervals until canceled. However, setTimeout is used when different parameters are being passed to the timer function with each ...