How should I call 3 functions in order to execute them one after the other?

Question

In Javascript, there are synchronous and asynchronous functions.

Synchronous Functions

Most functions in Javascript are synchronous. If you were to call several synchronous functions in a row

doSomething();
doSomethingElse();
doSomethingUsefulThisTime();

they will execute in order. doSomethingElse will not start until doSomething has completed. doSomethingUsefulThisTime, in turn, will not start until doSomethingElse has completed.

Asynchronous Functions

Asynchronous function, however, will not wait for each other. Let us look at the same code sample we had above, this time assuming that the functions are asynchronous

doSomething();
doSomethingElse();
doSomethingUsefulThisTime();

The functions will be initialized in order, but they will all execute roughly at the same time. You can't consistently predict which one will finish first: the one that happens to take the shortest amount of time to execute will finish first.

But sometimes, you want functions that are asynchronous to execute in order, and sometimes you want functions that are synchronous to execute asynchronously. Fortunately, this is possible with callbacks and timeouts, respectively.

Callbacks

Let's assume that we have three asynchronous functions that we want to execute in order, some_3secs_function, some_5secs_function, and some_8secs_function.

Since functions can be passed as arguments in Javascript, you can pass a function as a callback to execute after the function has completed.

If we create the functions like this

function some_3secs_function(value, callback){
  //do stuff
  callback();
}

then you can call then in order, like this:

some_3secs_function(some_value, function() {
  some_5secs_function(other_value, function() {
    some_8secs_function(third_value, function() {
      //All three functions have completed, in order.
    });
  });
});

Timeouts

In Javascript, you can tell a function to execute after a certain timeout (in milliseconds). This can, in effect, make synchronous functions behave asynchronously.

If we have three synchronous functions, we can execute them asynchronously using the setTimeout function.

setTimeout(doSomething, 10);
setTimeout(doSomethingElse, 10);
setTimeout(doSomethingUsefulThisTime, 10);

This is, however, a bit ugly and violates the DRY principle^[wikipedia]. We could clean this up a bit by creating a function that accepts an array of functions and a timeout.

function executeAsynchronously(functions, timeout) {
  for(var i = 0; i < functions.length; i++) {
    setTimeout(functions[i], timeout);
  }
}

This can be called like so:

executeAsynchronously(
    [doSomething, doSomethingElse, doSomethingUsefulThisTime], 10);

In summary, if you have asynchronous functions that you want to execute syncronously, use callbacks, and if you have synchronous functions that you want to execute asynchronously, use timeouts.

This answer uses promises, a JavaScript feature of the ECMAScript 6 standard. If your target platform does not support promises, polyfill it with PromiseJs.

Look at my answer here Wait till a Function with animations is finished until running another Function if you want to use jQuery animations.

Here is what your code would look like with ES6 Promises and jQuery animations.

Promise.resolve($('#art1').animate({ 'width': '1000px' }, 1000).promise()).then(function(){
    return Promise.resolve($('#art2').animate({ 'width': '1000px' }, 1000).promise());
}).then(function(){
    return Promise.resolve($('#art3').animate({ 'width': '1000px' }, 1000).promise());
});

Normal methods can also be wrapped in Promises.

new Promise(function(fulfill, reject){
    //do something for 5 seconds
    fulfill(result);
}).then(function(result){
    return new Promise(function(fulfill, reject){
        //do something for 5 seconds
        fulfill(result);
    });
}).then(function(result){
    return new Promise(function(fulfill, reject){
        //do something for 8 seconds
        fulfill(result);
    });
}).then(function(result){
    //do something with the result
});

The then method is executed as soon as the Promise finished. Normally, the return value of the function passed to then is passed to the next one as result.

But if a Promise is returned, the next then function waits until the Promise finished executing and receives the results of it (the value that is passed to fulfill).

It sounds like you're not fully appreciating the difference between synchronous and asynchronous function execution.

The code you provided in your update immediately executes each of your callback functions, which in turn immediately start an animation. The animations, however, execute asyncronously. It works like this:

1. Perform a step in the animation
2. Call setTimeout with a function containing the next animation step and a delay
3. Some time passes
4. The callback given to setTimeout executes
5. Go back to step 1

This continues until the last step in the animation completes. In the meantime, your synchronous functions have long ago completed. In other words, your call to the animate function doesn't really take 3 seconds. The effect is simulated with delays and callbacks.

What you need is a queue. Internally, jQuery queues the animations, only executing your callback once its corresponding animation completes. If your callback then starts another animation, the effect is that they are executed in sequence.

In the simplest case this is equivalent to the following:

window.setTimeout(function() {
    alert("!");
    // set another timeout once the first completes
    window.setTimeout(function() {
        alert("!!");
    }, 1000);
}, 3000); // longer, but first

Here's a general asynchronous looping function. It will call the given functions in order, waiting for the specified number of seconds between each.

function loop() {
    var args = arguments;
    if (args.length <= 0)
        return;
    (function chain(i) {
        if (i >= args.length || typeof args[i] !== 'function')
            return;
        window.setTimeout(function() {
            args[i]();
            chain(i + 1);
        }, 2000);
    })(0);
}    

Usage:

loop(
  function() { alert("sam"); }, 
  function() { alert("sue"); });

You could obviously modify this to take configurable wait times or to immediately execute the first function or to stop executing when a function in the chain returns false or to apply the functions in a specified context or whatever else you might need.

I believe the async library will provide you a very elegant way to do this. While promises and callbacks can get a little hard to juggle with, async can give neat patterns to streamline your thought process. To run functions in serial, you would need to put them in an async waterfall. In async lingo, every function is called a task that takes some arguments and a callback; which is the next function in the sequence. The basic structure would look something like:

async.waterfall([
  // A list of functions
  function(callback){
      // Function no. 1 in sequence
      callback(null, arg);
  },
  function(arg, callback){
      // Function no. 2 in sequence
      callback(null);
  }
],    
function(err, results){
   // Optional final callback will get results for all prior functions
});

I've just tried to briefly explain the structure here. Read through the waterfall guide for more information, it's pretty well written.

your functions should take a callback function, that gets called when it finishes.

function fone(callback){
...do something...
callback.apply(this,[]);

}

function ftwo(callback){
...do something...
callback.apply(this,[]);
}

then usage would be like:

fone(function(){
  ftwo(function(){
   ..ftwo done...
  })
});