SeanMcb.com

For a while now, I’ve been quite partial to the super-lightweight Moo.FX Javascript effects library for all of my effects needs. For some reason, Scriptaculous has been the “JS effects standard” for a while. Personally, I don’t like Scriptaculous very much. It seems bloated and isn’t as straightforward to use as Moo.FX is. The Moo.FX base library is delightfully simple, and at only 3Kb, it’s also very light on the bandwidth. Combinations of those three effects let me do pretty much whatever I want, with the possible exception of color fading backgrounds.

The new version of Moo.FX features a few nice cleanups and additions to the base library, as well as a pretty complete reworking of the Moo.FX pack (the more advanced effects.) The base library additions are very nice:

• A new method “clearTimer” has been added to the base effects class that allows you to cancel an effect that is currently in progress and start a new one. I’ve been doing this by hand in the past, so it’s nice to have a method that does it for me in less code.
• Transitions have been added! The terminology is a little confusing, but basically, they allow you to change the function which controls the speed and direction of the changing animation value. The base library includes four, but you can also easily write your own. I love it!

I usually only use the base library anymore, but there have also been some major changes to the pack extended effects library. In addition, documentation for the entire library has been added. There is also support for a lite version of Prototype and a moo.ajax class to handle AJAX (since you may not be using the full Prototype version.) I’m not sure what I think about the lite Prototype. On the one hand, the full Prototype is pretty big. On the other hand, it makes the REST of the code you write much shorter and with caching it only needs to be downloaded once per session. I’ll stick with the full version for now since I actually make use of it.

Go and check it out! The best lightweight effects library on the web!

EDIT: Wow, I must be really blind. The old version of Moo.FX also had the clearTimer method. I just wasn’t using it. The new code IS cleaner, so maybe that’s why I didn’t see it before? I really have no excuse…