jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques Beginner's Guide

Foreword

Since the first jQuery homepage in 2006, an interactive example introduced visitors to jQuery with a single line of code, and a button to run that code. When clicked, it added a class to a hidden paragraph, and animated that paragraph to become visible.

Today, in late 2010, the API documentation has 15 methods listed in the Effects category. These provide built-in animations for fading and sliding, as well as various ways to create custom animations. When combined with color and class animations and custom easings that jQuery UI provides, there are even more ways to create animations.

A good rule of thumb for using animations is to use slides when showing elements within the pageflow, and fades for overlays, like a tooltip. But that's ...