jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques - Index of

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Chapter 1
c. A string or integer representing the speed or duration of the animation as
the first argument, the ending opacity of the target element, and optionally
a callback function to be executed when the animation ends
d. No arguments are required
Have a go hero – extending the loading animation
I mentioned that we could use the loading animation when making requests and waiting for
a response. Try using it with jQuery's AJAX methods, showing the loader just before making
the request, and hiding it again once the response has been processed. The JSONP example,
which retrieves images of cats, on the jQuery website (at http://api.jquery.com/
jQuery.getJSON/) makes a great test case, although depending on the speed of your
connection, the loader may not be visible for very long.
Summary
In this introductory chapter, we looked at a brief history of animation on the Web including
how it began, early HTML elements and browser support, the rise of Flash, and the direction
it's heading in the not too distant future.
We also looked at how animations can be used in a user interface to enhance the user
experience. We saw some guidelines as to when animation should and shouldn't be used
and looked at some of the things we should consider when implementing animations.
We closed the chapter with a basic example looking at a loading animation. In this example,
we used the fadeTo() jQuery method to change the opacity of elements on the page, and
a simple interval to "play" the animation. We didn't cover the method in full detail, but we
saw one example of how it can be used. We'll look at this method in more detail in the next
chapter, which covers all of the fading animations provided by jQuery.