Using jQuery and sprites

Question

I am looking for a way to animate my sprites with jquery. When I hover over the image, it fades in. then when I hover off. it fades out.

CSS:

nav ul { position: relative; z-index: 1000;  margin: -26px 0 0 11px; overflow: hidden; }
nav ul li { display: inline; }
nav ul li a { background: url(../images/nav-sprite.png); display: block; float: left; text-indent: -999px; margin: 0 auto; width: 667px; }
nav ul a#nav-1 { background-position: 0 0;  height: 48px; width: 103px; }
nav ul a#nav-2 { background-position: -103px 0;  height: 48px; width: 129px; }
nav ul a#nav-3 { background-position: -234px 0;  height: 48px; width: 156px; }
nav ul a#nav-4 { background-position: -392px 0;  height: 48px; width: 147px; }
nav ul a#nav-5 { background-position: -541px 0;  height: 48px; width: 124px; }
nav ul a#nav-1:hover { background-position: 0 48px; }
nav ul a#nav-2:hover { background-position: -103px 48px; }
nav ul a#nav-3:hover { background-position: -234px 48px; }
nav ul a#nav-4:hover { background-position: -392px 48px; }
nav ul a#nav-5:hover { background-position: -541px 48px; }

Answer 1

There's nothing specific to sprites in this question. You can always use the usual method, combining the hover event with the fadeTo function to get the opacity animation you need.

$("nav ul a").hover(function(){
    $(this).stop().fadeTo(300, 1);
}, function(){
    $(this).stop().fadeTo(300, 0.4);
}).fadeTo(0, 0.4);

If you need to, you can also add a CSS fallback:

nav ul a {
    opacity: 0.4;
}

nav ul a:hover {
    opacity: 1;
}

See it working live here: http://www.jsfiddle.net/yijiang/CNC6W/

---

Well, it's simple to fix - try adding a background to the ul element, then giving it a border-radius to make sure the rounded corners stay.

nav ul {
    background: #000;
    -moz-border-radius: 8px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
    border-radius: 8px;   /* Not sure about the actual radius 
                             you're using - these are guesses */
}

You might also want to increase the starting opacity from 0.4 to something higher, and the duration to something lower than 300.

Answer 2

Check out this screen cast from CSS Tricks. It deals with animating CSS sprites.