[javascript] jQuery "blinking highlight" effect on div?

I'm looking for a way to do the following.

I add a <div> to a page, and an ajax callback returns some value. The <div> is filled with values from the ajax call, and the <div> is then prepended to another <div>, which acts as a table column.

I would like to get the user's attention, to show her/him that there is something new on the page.
I want the <div> to blink, not show/hide, but to highlight/unhighlight for some time, lets say 5 seconds.

I have been looking at the blink plugin, but as far as I can see it only does show/hide on an element.

Btw, the solution has to be cross-browser, and yes, IE unfortunately included. I will probably have to hack a little to get it working in IE, but overall it has to work.

I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for so wrote something as basic as I could make it. The highlighted class could just be a background color.

var blinking = false; // global scope

function start_blinking() {
    blinking = true;
    blink();
}

function stop_blinking() {
    blinking = false;
}

function blink(x=0) {
    $("#element").removeClass("highlighted"); // default to not highlighted to account for the extra iteration after stopping

    if (blinking) {
        if (x%2 == 0) $("#element").addClass("highlighted"); // highlight on even numbers of x
        setTimeout(function(){blink(++x)},500); // increment x and recurse
    }
}

Since I don't see any jQuery based solutions that don't require extra libraries here is a simple one that is a bit more flexible than those using fadeIn/fadeOut.

$.fn.blink = function (count) {
    var $this = $(this);

    count = count - 1 || 0;

    $this.animate({opacity: .25}, 100, function () {
        $this.animate({opacity: 1}, 100, function () {
            if (count > 0) {
                $this.blink(count);
            }
        });
    });
};

Use it like this

$('#element').blink(3); // 3 Times.

If you are not already using the Jquery UI library and you want to mimic the effect what you can do is very simple

$('#blinkElement').fadeIn(100).fadeOut(100).fadeIn(100).fadeOut(100);

you can also play around with the numbers to get a faster or slower one to fit your design better.

This can also be a global jquery function so you can use the same effect across the site. Also note that if you put this code in a for loop you can have 1 milion pulses so therefore you are not restricted to the default 6 or how much the default is.

EDIT: Adding this as a global jQuery function

$.fn.Blink = function (interval = 100, iterate = 1) {
    for (i = 1; i <= iterate; i++)
        $(this).fadeOut(interval).fadeIn(interval);
}

Blink any element easily from your site using the following

$('#myElement').Blink(); // Will Blink once

$('#myElement').Blink(500); // Will Blink once, but slowly

$('#myElement').Blink(100, 50); // Will Blink 50 times once

I use different predefined colors like so:

theme = {
    whateverFlashColor: '#ffffaa',
    whateverElseFlashColor: '#bbffaa',
    whateverElseThenFlashColor: '#ffffff',
};

and use them like this

$('#element').effect("highlight", {color:theme.whateverFlashColor}, 1000);

easy :)

You may want to look into jQuery UI. Specifically, the highlight effect:

http://jqueryui.com/demos/effect/

Try with jquery.blink.js plugin:

https://github.com/webarthur/jquery-blink

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.4/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<script src="/path/to/jquery.blink.js"></script>

<script>
jQuery('span').blink({color:'white'}, {color:'black'}, 50);
</script>

#enjoy!

Take a look at http://jqueryui.com/demos/effect/. It has an effect named pulsate that will do exactly what you want.

$("#trigger").change(function() {$("#div_you_want_to_blink").effect("pulsate");});

For those who do not want to include the whole of jQuery UI, you can use jQuery.pulse.js instead.

To have looping animation of changing opacity, do this:

$('#target').pulse({opacity: 0.8}, {duration : 100, pulses : 5});

It is light (less than 1kb), and allows you to loop any kind of animations.

just give elem.fadeOut(10).fadeIn(10);

If you don't want the overhead of jQuery UI, I recently wrote a recursive solution using .animate(). You can customize the delays and colors as you need.

function doBlink(id, count) {
    $(id).animate({ backgroundColor: "#fee3ea" }, {
        duration: 100, 
        complete: function() {

            // reset
            $(id).delay(100).animate({ backgroundColor: "#ffffff" }, {
                duration: 100,
                complete: function() {

                    // maybe call next round
                    if(count > 1) {
                        doBlink(id, --count);
                    }
                }
            });

        }
    });
}

Of course you'll need the color plugin to get backgroundColor to work with .animate(). https://github.com/jquery/jquery-color

And to provide a bit of context this is how I called it. I needed to scroll the page to my target div and then blink it.

$(window).load(function(){
    $('html,body').animate({
        scrollTop: $(scrollToId).offset().top - 50
    }, {
        duration: 400,
        complete: function() { doBlink(scrollToId, 5); }
    });
});

This is a custom blink effect I created, which uses setInterval and fadeTo

HTML -

<div id="box">Box</div>

JS -

setInterval(function(){blink()}, 1000);


    function blink() {
        $("#box").fadeTo(100, 0.1).fadeTo(200, 1.0);
    }

As simple as it gets.

http://jsfiddle.net/Ajey/25Wfn/

Check it out -

<input type="button" id="btnclick" value="click" />
var intervalA;
        var intervalB;

        $(document).ready(function () {

            $('#btnclick').click(function () {
                blinkFont();

                setTimeout(function () {
                    clearInterval(intervalA);
                    clearInterval(intervalB);
                }, 5000);
            });
        });

        function blinkFont() {
            document.getElementById("blink").style.color = "red"
            document.getElementById("blink").style.background = "black"
            intervalA = setTimeout("blinkFont()", 500);
        }

        function setblinkFont() {
            document.getElementById("blink").style.color = "black"
            document.getElementById("blink").style.background = "red"
            intervalB = setTimeout("blinkFont()", 500);
        }

    </script>

    <div id="blink" class="live-chat">
        <span>This is blinking text and background</span>
    </div>

I think you could use a similar answer I gave. You can find it here... https://stackoverflow.com/a/19083993/2063096

• should work on all browsers as it only Javascript and jQuery.

Note: This solution does NOT use jQuery UI, there is also a fiddle so you can play around to your liking before implementing it in your code.

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    var count = 0;
    do {
        $('#toFlash').fadeOut(500).fadeIn(500);
        count++;
    } while(count < 10);/*set how many time you want it to flash*/
});
</script