Moving elements with javascript

Question

What are the best practices for moving elements with javascript? Do you use timeouts or intervals? Is it bad to have timed events for 10 milliseconds, or will it be precise? Do you move pixel by pixel, or a certain fraction of the total distance? If you use intervals, how do you stop the interval when the element is in position?

The last two times I've seen motion in javascript have been with jQuery and Raphael.js, neither of which I can understand the source code of. Are there some good tutorials or code examples anywhere? Is there a simple explanation of the methods jQuery uses?

Answer 1

Here you can find a good Javascript Animation tutorial: http://www.schillmania.com/content/projects/javascript-animation-1

But what you said is right. Jquery Animate uses setTimeout, moving the object based in calculations of duration, position and easing.

Answer 2

There is a recent function called requestAnimationFrame which runs a function as soon as possible. This is a good practice since it has been made for animation purposes.

The way it works in terms of coding is the same as setTimeout, e.g. when the function finishes you call requestAnimationFrame.

In the function, you fetch the current time to see how the object should be positioned at that time.

You can cancel a pending function it with cancelRequestAnimationFrame, passing the return value of requestAnimationFrame.

Currently this is not cross-browser and the functions are vendor-prefixed, e.g. webkitRequestAnimationFrame for Chrome.

E.g.: http://jsfiddle.net/pimvdb/G2ThU/1/.

var div = document.getElementById('div');
var animation;

function move() {
    var time = Math.round((new Date()).getTime() / 10) % 200;

    div.style.left = time + 'px';

    animation = requestAnimationFrame(move);
}

document.getElementById("start").onclick = function() {
    animation = requestAnimationFrame(move);
}

document.getElementById("stop").onclick = function() {
    cancelRequestAnimationFrame(animation);
}

Answer 3

Intervals are preferable, I believe, because you only set it once in the code rather than once per frame. It only needs to read the code once and reuse it several times, rather than reading it every time it is created.

10ms is a bit short. The computer can natively support intervals of about 16ms, then more precise timers can be used for faster intervals, however these are very power-consuming. IE9 supports both, depending on the computer's power settings, but ideally you shouldn't need anything faster than 50ms (20 FPS).

I like to move a fraction of the total distance, based on the time that has passed since the animation started. This way, no matter what the speed of the computer and browser, the animation will always take the exact same amount of time. Guaranteed.

Something like:

interval = setInterval(function() {
    // do stuff
    if( /*animation ended*/) clearInterval(interval);
},time);

jQuery is easy for some, but personally I find nothing beats writing it yourself in plain, old JS. Much easier to understand what's going on exactly, rather than relying on some framework to get it right for you.