If you've spent any time applying effects to animated elements, then you will very likely have used .animate(), or one of the shortcut methods, such as .fadeIn(), .show(), or .slideUp(). All of them follow a similar format, where we need to provide at least a duration, type of easing, and potentially a callback function to either perform a task when the animation has completed, or log something to the console to this effect.

All too often though, we may decide to stick with the standard values such as slow, fast, or perhaps a numerical value such as 500:

$("button").click(function() {
  $("p").slideToggle("slow");
});

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using this approach - except, it's very boring, and only using a fraction of what is possible.

Over the next few pages, we'll explore some of the tricks available to broaden our knowledge when applying effects, and realize that we don't always have to stick with the tried and tested methods. Before we explore some of...