What is the difference between
$(\"#myid\").attr(\"style\", \"visibility: hidden\")
and
$(\"#myid\").css(\"visibility\", \"hidden\"
Nothing. Just two ways to accomplish the same goal.
The first will overwrite any existing style settings. If you had:
<div style="font-weight: bold;" />
It would become:
<div sytle="visibility: hidden;" />
The second will add the visibility setting to the existing styles. So:
<div style="font-weight: bold;" />
Woudl become:
<div style="font-weight: bold; visibility: hidden;" />
If there's no style attribute already set, then the two will produce the same end result.
Doing this:
$("#myid").attr("style", "visibility: hidden")
Will leave only this style attribute, while doing this:
$("#myid").css("visibility", "hidden")
Will add (or set) this style attribute.
Here's an example, the first will always result in this:
style="visibility: hidden;"
The second just adds visibility
so your style may now be:
style="width: 50px; color: red; visibility: hidden;"
There isn't really any difference. $.css() is just a shortcut method for accessing the css style attribute of a dom element.
http://api.jquery.com/css/
EDIT: As justin pointed out, there is a difference in that the .attr() method will overwrite any existing style attributes.