jquery: can i animate the position:absolute to position:relative?

Question

i have a bunch of images that are positioned absolutely, i want to be able to click a button and have them all animate to where they would normally be on the page if they had the position: relative.

so is it even possible to animate from position:absolute to position:relative in jquery?

this is what i have:

$(".change_layout").click(function(){

    $(".book_img").animate({position:'relative', top:'0px', left:'0px'}, 1000)

})

Answer 1

I don't think you can do that. jQuery animate only works on any "numeric CSS property".

Answer 2

No.

However, you could check the element's current location (call .position()), set the position to relative, and animate from the original location to the current one.

Answer 3

No, you cannot animate it directly but you can find out the end point and animate the position there. Something like this might work when animation to the static position:

$('img.foo').each(function() {

    var el = $(this);

    // Make it static
    el.css({
        visibility: 'hidden', // Hide it so the position change isn't visible
        position: 'static'
    });

    // Get the static position
    var end = el.position();

    // Turn it back to absolute
    el.css({
        visibility: 'visible', // Show it
        position: 'absolute'
    }).animate({ // Animate to the static position
        top: end.top,
        left: end.left
    }, function() { // Make it static
        $(this).css('position', 'static');
    });
});

It's a bit hacky, but it should work.