How to animate CSS Translate

Question

Is it possible to animate the CSS property translate via jquery?

$('.myButtons').animate({"transform":"translate(50px,100px)"})

and does it work in many browsers?

Demo not working: http://jsfiddle.net/ignaciocorreia/xWCVf/

UPDATE:

My solutions:

1. Simple implementations - http://jsfiddle.net/ignaciocorreia/R3EaJ/
2. Complex implementation and multi-browser - http://ricostacruz.com/jquery.transit/

Answer 1

$('div').css({"-webkit-transform":"translate(100px,100px)"});​

http://jsfiddle.net/xWCVf/5/

Answer 2

There are jQuery-plugins that help you achieve this like: http://ricostacruz.com/jquery.transit/

Answer 3

There's an interesting way which this can be achieved by using jQuery animate method in a unique way, where you call the animate method on a javascript Object which describes the from value and then you pass as the first parameter another js object which describes the to value, and a step function which handles each step of the animation according to the values described earlier.

Example - Animate transform translateY:

var $elm = $('h1'); // element to be moved

function run( v ){
  // clone the array (before "animate()" modifies it), and reverse it
  var reversed = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(v)).reverse();
  
  $(v[0]).animate(v[1], {
      duration: 500,
      step: function(val) {
          $elm.css("transform", `translateY(${val}px)`); 
      },
      done: function(){
          run( reversed )
      }
  })
};

// "y" is arbitrary used as the key name 
run( [{y:0}, {y:80}] )

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<h1>jQuery animate <pre>transform:translateY()</pre></h1>

Answer 4

According to CanIUse you should have it with multiple prefixes.

$('div').css({
    "-webkit-transform":"translate(100px,100px)",
    "-ms-transform":"translate(100px,100px)",
    "transform":"translate(100px,100px)"
  });​

Answer 5

I too was looking for a good way to do this, I found the best way was to set a transition on the "transform" property and then change the transform and then remove the transition.

I put it all together in a jQuery plugin

https://gist.github.com/dustinpoissant/8a4837c476e3939a5b3d1a2585e8d1b0

You would use the code like this:

$("#myElement").animateTransform("rotate(180deg)", 750, function(){
  console.log("animation completed after 750ms");
});