jQuery animate backgroundColor

Question

I am trying to animate a change in backgroundColor using jQuery on mouseover.

I have checked some example and I seem to have it right, it works with other properties

Answer 1

These days jQuery color plugin supports following named colors:

aqua:[0,255,255],
azure:[240,255,255],
beige:[245,245,220],
black:[0,0,0],
blue:[0,0,255],
brown:[165,42,42],
cyan:[0,255,255],
darkblue:[0,0,139],
darkcyan:[0,139,139],
darkgrey:[169,169,169],
darkgreen:[0,100,0],
darkkhaki:[189,183,107],
darkmagenta:[139,0,139],
darkolivegreen:[85,107,47],
darkorange:[255,140,0],
darkorchid:[153,50,204],
darkred:[139,0,0],
darksalmon:[233,150,122],
darkviolet:[148,0,211],
fuchsia:[255,0,255],
gold:[255,215,0],
green:[0,128,0],
indigo:[75,0,130],
khaki:[240,230,140],
lightblue:[173,216,230],
lightcyan:[224,255,255],
lightgreen:[144,238,144],
lightgrey:[211,211,211],
lightpink:[255,182,193],
lightyellow:[255,255,224],
lime:[0,255,0],
magenta:[255,0,255],
maroon:[128,0,0],
navy:[0,0,128],
olive:[128,128,0],
orange:[255,165,0],
pink:[255,192,203],
purple:[128,0,128],
violet:[128,0,128],
red:[255,0,0],
silver:[192,192,192],
white:[255,255,255],
yellow:[255,255,0]

Answer 2

Simply add the following snippet bellow your jquery script and enjoy:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/jquery.color-animation/1/mainfile"></script>

See the example

Reference for more info

Answer 3

I used a combination of CSS transitions with JQuery for the desired effect; obviously browsers which don't support CSS transitions will not animate but its a lightweight option which works well for most browsers and for my requirements is acceptable degradation.

Jquery to change the background color:

   $('.mylinkholder a').hover(
        function () {
            $(this).css({ backgroundColor: '#f0f0f0' }); 
        },
        function () {
            $(this).css({ backgroundColor: '#fff' });
        }
    );

CSS using transition to fade background-color change

   .mylinkholder a
   {
   transition: background-color .5s ease-in-out;
   -moz-transition: background-color .5s ease-in-out;
   -webkit-transition: background-color .5s ease-in-out; 
  -o-transition: background-color .5s ease-in-out; 
   }

Answer 4

Bitstorm has the best jquery color animation plugin I've seen. It's an improvement to the jquery color project. It also supports rgba.

http://www.bitstorm.org/jquery/color-animation/

Answer 5

If you wan't to animate your background using only core jQuery functionality, try this:

jQuery(".usercontent").mouseover(function() {
      jQuery(".usercontent").animate({backgroundColor:'red'}, 'fast', 'linear', function() {
            jQuery(this).animate({
                backgroundColor: 'white'
            }, 'normal', 'linear', function() {
                jQuery(this).css({'background':'none', backgroundColor : ''});
            });
        });

Answer 6

The color plugin is only 4kb so much cheaper than the UI library. Of course you'll want to use a decent version of the plugin and not some buggy old thing which doesn't handle Safari and crashes when the transitions are too fast. Since a minified version isn't supplied you might like test various compressors and make your own min version. YUI gets the best compression in this case needing only 2317 bytes and since it is so small - here it is:

(function (d) {
    d.each(["backgroundColor", "borderBottomColor", "borderLeftColor", "borderRightColor", "borderTopColor", "color", "outlineColor"], function (f, e) {
        d.fx.step[e] = function (g) {
            if (!g.colorInit) {
                g.start = c(g.elem, e);
                g.end = b(g.end);
                g.colorInit = true
            }
            g.elem.style[e] = "rgb(" + [Math.max(Math.min(parseInt((g.pos * (g.end[0] - g.start[0])) + g.start[0]), 255), 0), Math.max(Math.min(parseInt((g.pos * (g.end[1] - g.start[1])) + g.start[1]), 255), 0), Math.max(Math.min(parseInt((g.pos * (g.end[2] - g.start[2])) + g.start[2]), 255), 0)].join(",") + ")"
        }
    });

    function b(f) {
        var e;
        if (f && f.constructor == Array && f.length == 3) {
            return f
        }
        if (e = /rgb\(\s*([0-9]{1,3})\s*,\s*([0-9]{1,3})\s*,\s*([0-9]{1,3})\s*\)/.exec(f)) {
            return [parseInt(e[1]), parseInt(e[2]), parseInt(e[3])]
        }
        if (e = /rgb\(\s*([0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)\%\s*,\s*([0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)\%\s*,\s*([0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]+)?)\%\s*\)/.exec(f)) {
            return [parseFloat(e[1]) * 2.55, parseFloat(e[2]) * 2.55, parseFloat(e[3]) * 2.55]
        }
        if (e = /#([a-fA-F0-9]{2})([a-fA-F0-9]{2})([a-fA-F0-9]{2})/.exec(f)) {
            return [parseInt(e[1], 16), parseInt(e[2], 16), parseInt(e[3], 16)]
        }
        if (e = /#([a-fA-F0-9])([a-fA-F0-9])([a-fA-F0-9])/.exec(f)) {
            return [parseInt(e[1] + e[1], 16), parseInt(e[2] + e[2], 16), parseInt(e[3] + e[3], 16)]
        }
        if (e = /rgba\(0, 0, 0, 0\)/.exec(f)) {
            return a.transparent
        }
        return a[d.trim(f).toLowerCase()]
    }
    function c(g, e) {
        var f;
        do {
            f = d.css(g, e);
            if (f != "" && f != "transparent" || d.nodeName(g, "body")) {
                break
            }
            e = "backgroundColor"
        } while (g = g.parentNode);
        return b(f)
    }
    var a = {
        aqua: [0, 255, 255],
        azure: [240, 255, 255],
        beige: [245, 245, 220],
        black: [0, 0, 0],
        blue: [0, 0, 255],
        brown: [165, 42, 42],
        cyan: [0, 255, 255],
        darkblue: [0, 0, 139],
        darkcyan: [0, 139, 139],
        darkgrey: [169, 169, 169],
        darkgreen: [0, 100, 0],
        darkkhaki: [189, 183, 107],
        darkmagenta: [139, 0, 139],
        darkolivegreen: [85, 107, 47],
        darkorange: [255, 140, 0],
        darkorchid: [153, 50, 204],
        darkred: [139, 0, 0],
        darksalmon: [233, 150, 122],
        darkviolet: [148, 0, 211],
        fuchsia: [255, 0, 255],
        gold: [255, 215, 0],
        green: [0, 128, 0],
        indigo: [75, 0, 130],
        khaki: [240, 230, 140],
        lightblue: [173, 216, 230],
        lightcyan: [224, 255, 255],
        lightgreen: [144, 238, 144],
        lightgrey: [211, 211, 211],
        lightpink: [255, 182, 193],
        lightyellow: [255, 255, 224],
        lime: [0, 255, 0],
        magenta: [255, 0, 255],
        maroon: [128, 0, 0],
        navy: [0, 0, 128],
        olive: [128, 128, 0],
        orange: [255, 165, 0],
        pink: [255, 192, 203],
        purple: [128, 0, 128],
        violet: [128, 0, 128],
        red: [255, 0, 0],
        silver: [192, 192, 192],
        white: [255, 255, 255],
        yellow: [255, 255, 0],
        transparent: [255, 255, 255]
    }
})(jQuery);