Jquery ui, call start drag manually

Question

In Jquery UI I can configure an element as draggable by invoking

$("#drag").draggable();

But is there a way to start and stop the drag functions manually from another function? Ie

someOtherFunction = function() {
  $("#drag").startdrag();
}
yetAnotherFunction = function() {
  $("#drag").stopdrag();
}

Answer 1

Drag start is started via script looking at mouse events. mouse down followed by a mouse move. If you can simulate those mouse movements via Javascript (I don't know where, how, or even if this is possible), then it should fire off the start of a drag.

Note: just found that YUI has a way to simulate mouse moves and mouse clicks. Check out http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/yuitest/#useractions