How can I force WebKit to redraw/repaint to propag

Question

I have some trivial JavaScript to effect a style change:

sel = document.getElementById('my_id');
sel.className = sel.className.replace(/item-[1-9]-selected/,'item-1-selected');
return false;

This works fine with the latest versions of FF, Opera and IE, but fails on the latest versions of Chrome and Safari.

It affects two descendants, which happen to be siblings. The first sibling updates, but the second doesn’t. A child of the second element also has focus and contains the <a> tag that contains the above code in an onclick attribute.

In the Chrome “Developer Tools” window if I nudge (e.g. uncheck & check) any attribute of any element, the second sibling updates to the correct style.

Is there a workaround to easily and programmatically “nudge” WebKit into doing the right thing?

Answer 1

Since everyone seems to have their own problems and solutions, I figured I'd add something that works for me. On Android 4.1 with current Chrome, trying to drag a canvas around inside a div with overflow:hidden, I couldn't get a redraw unless I added an element to the parent div (where it wouldn't do any harm).

var parelt = document.getElementById("parentid");
var remElt = document.getElementById("removeMe");
var addElt = document.createElement("div");
addElt.innerHTML = " "; // Won't work if empty
addElt.id="removeMe";
if (remElt) {
    parelt.replaceChild(addElt, remElt);
} else {
    parelt.appendChild(addElt);
}

No screen flicker or real update, and cleaning up after myself. No global or class scoped variables, just locals. Doesn't seem to hurt anything on Mobile Safari/iPad or desktop browsers.