I have a menu composed of a single image (e.g., sprites). In order to display the hover image, I simply move the background image down. I'd like this effect to be controlled by jQuery and animated.
This is a sample menu item.
<ul>
<li id="home"><a href="#"></a></li>
</ul>
This is what I'm toying with. I'm very new to jQuery and am having problems getting the proper selector going.
$(document).ready(function(){
$('#home a');
// Set the 'normal' state background position
.css( {backgroundPosition: "0 0"} )
// On mouse over, move the background
.mouseover(function(){
$(this).stop().animate({backgroundPosition:"(0 -54px)"}, {duration:500})
})
// On mouse out, move the background back
.mouseout(function(){
$(this).stop().animate({backgroundPosition:"(0 0)"}, {duration:500})
})
});
Could you point out what I'm doing wrong? I know the selector is probably incorrect but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to manipulate the anchor.
If you were not animating the transitions — and given the kinds of images I've grouped as sprites, I don't know why you'd ever do that — then you'd want something like this:
$(document).ready(function(){
$('#home a')
// On mouse over, move the background on hover
.mouseover(function() {
$(this).css('backgroundPosition', '0 -54px');
})
// On mouse out, move the background back
.mouseout(function() {
$(this).css('backgroundPosition', '0 0');
})
});
Now, if you are trying to animate that, then you've got bad syntax for the CSS and for the calls to "animate".
$(document).ready(function(){
$('#home a')
// On mouse over, move the background on hover
.mouseover(function(){
$(this).stop().animate({backgroundPosition: "0 -54px"}, 500);
})
// On mouse out, move the background back
.mouseout(function(){
$(this).stop().animate({backgroundPosition: "0 0"}, 500);
})
});
Again, I am doubtful that jQuery is going to be able to animate "backgroundPosition" for you, but then I don't do "animate()" very often and jQuery always manages to surprise me.
edit: here's a page: http://snook.ca/archives/javascript/jquery-bg-image-animations/
{backgroundPosition:"(0 -54px)"
(You don't want the brackets there. There's no brackets in a CSS background-position
rule.)
In any case jQuery doesn't know how to animate a compound value like backgroundPosition
. In IE you get access to it with backgroundPositionY
, which, as a simple value, jQuery can animate. However this is non-standard and won't work elsewhere.
Here's a plugin that claims to fix it.