fadeOut without collapse

Question

I have a list that I would like to fadeOut, but not have it collapse. The documentation says "Once the opacity reaches 0, the display style property is set to none".

I wonder if I could fadeOut down to 1 or something.

Answer 1

Wrap the list in a div with a set height, then fade out the list.

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/CtQcR/

Answer 2

Have you tried using jQuery's fadeTo() function and then setting it to a 0 opacity? Something like this:

$('#myDiv').fadeTo('medium', 0);

Answer 3

How about just using .animate() to animate the opacity to 0 instead of using the .fadeOut() method?

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/ZqBGa/

$( selector ).animate({opacity: 0});

This will retain the element in the page structure, but it will be invisible.