It sounds like you're not fully appreciating the difference between synchronous and asynchronous function execution.
The code you provided in your update immediately executes each of your callback functions, which in turn immediately start an animation. The animations, however, execute asyncronously. It works like this:
setTimeout with a function containing the next animation step and a delaysetTimeout executes This continues until the last step in the animation completes. In the meantime, your synchronous functions have long ago completed. In other words, your call to the animate function doesn't really take 3 seconds. The effect is simulated with delays and callbacks.
What you need is a queue. Internally, jQuery queues the animations, only executing your callback once its corresponding animation completes. If your callback then starts another animation, the effect is that they are executed in sequence.
In the simplest case this is equivalent to the following:
window.setTimeout(function() {
alert("!");
// set another timeout once the first completes
window.setTimeout(function() {
alert("!!");
}, 1000);
}, 3000); // longer, but first
Here's a general asynchronous looping function. It will call the given functions in order, waiting for the specified number of seconds between each.
function loop() {
var args = arguments;
if (args.length <= 0)
return;
(function chain(i) {
if (i >= args.length || typeof args[i] !== 'function')
return;
window.setTimeout(function() {
args[i]();
chain(i + 1);
}, 2000);
})(0);
}
Usage:
loop(
function() { alert("sam"); },
function() { alert("sue"); });
You could obviously modify this to take configurable wait times or to immediately execute the first function or to stop executing when a function in the chain returns false or to apply the functions in a specified context or whatever else you might need.