With HTML5 you can make file uploads with Ajax and jQuery. Not only that, you can do file validations (name, size, and MIME type) or handle the progress event with the HTML5 progress tag (or a div). Recently I had to make a file uploader, but I didn't want to use Flash nor Iframes or plugins and after some research I came up with the solution.
The HTML:
<form enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input name="file" type="file" />
<input type="button" value="Upload" />
</form>
<progress></progress>
First, you can do some validation if you want. For example, in the .on('change') event of the file:
$(':file').on('change', function () {
var file = this.files[0];
if (file.size > 1024) {
alert('max upload size is 1k');
}
// Also see .name, .type
});
Now the $.ajax() submit with the button's click:
$(':button').on('click', function () {
$.ajax({
// Your server script to process the upload
url: 'upload.php',
type: 'POST',
// Form data
data: new FormData($('form')[0]),
// Tell jQuery not to process data or worry about content-type
// You *must* include these options!
cache: false,
contentType: false,
processData: false,
// Custom XMLHttpRequest
xhr: function () {
var myXhr = $.ajaxSettings.xhr();
if (myXhr.upload) {
// For handling the progress of the upload
myXhr.upload.addEventListener('progress', function (e) {
if (e.lengthComputable) {
$('progress').attr({
value: e.loaded,
max: e.total,
});
}
}, false);
}
return myXhr;
}
});
});
As you can see, with HTML5 (and some research) file uploading not only becomes possible but super easy. Try it with Google Chrome as some of the HTML5 components of the examples aren't available in every browser.
Since the question refers to a single element, this code might be more suitable:
// Checks CSS content for display:[none|block], ignores visibility:[true|false]
$(element).is(":visible");
// The same works with hidden
$(element).is(":hidden");
It is the same as twernt's suggestion, but applied to a single element; and it matches the algorithm recommended in the jQuery FAQ.
We use jQuery's is() to check the selected element with another element, selector or any jQuery object. This method traverses along the DOM elements to find a match, which satisfies the passed parameter. It will return true if there is a match, otherwise return false.
Best Solution
You will want to check out the jQuery animate() feature. The standard way of doing this is positioning an element absolutely and then animating the "left" or "right" CSS property. An equally popular way is to increase/decrease the left or right margin.
Now, having said this, you need to be aware of severe performance loss for any type of animation that lasts longer than a second or two. Javascript was simply not meant to handle long, sustained, slow animations. This has to do with the way the DOM element is redrawn and recalculated for each "frame" of the animation. If you're doing a page-width animation that lasts more than a couple seconds, expect to see your processor spike by 50% or more. If you're on IE6, prepare to see your computer spontaneously combust into a flaming ball of browser incompetence.
To read up on this, check out this thread (from my very first Stackoverflow post no less)!
Here's a link to the jQuery docs for the animate() feature: http://docs.jquery.com/Effects/animate