glitch.js

A glitched effect for DOM elements.

See the examples page for an idea of what it does or read the blog post for some background info.

Usage

glitch.js depends on html2canvas so make sure you've loaded it before applying the effect.

If you want to use the transition animation then a recent version of jQuery is also needed.

There are 3 functions available to acheive the effect, exposed via the glitch property of the window namespace, and as a jQuery plugin if jQuery is available:

Glitch

To generate a canvas that contains a glitched version of the element, just call the glitch function passing in the element to glitch and an options object with a complete property that acts as the callback:

glitch(document.getElementById("currentContent"), {
    amount: 8,
    complete: function(canvas){
        // do something with the glitched canvas
    }
});

And using the jQuery plugin:

// callback only:
$("#currentContent").glitch(function(canvas){
    // do something with canvas
});

// or with options
$("#currentContent").glitch({
    amount: 8,
    complete: function(canvas){
        // do something with canvas
    }
})

The options are:

amount	The amount to glitch the image (default: 6)
complete	A callback that takes the glitched canvas as its only argument

Glitch Replace

To replace the element with a glitched version, call glitch.replace. It takes the same options object as glitch.

glitch.replace(document.getElementById("currentContent"), {
    amount: 6
});

Using the jQuery plugin, you can just call glitch with no arguments, or, if you want to provide options, use the replace method and the options object as the second argument:

$("#currentContent").glitch();

// and to pass options in:
$("#currentContent").glitch('replace', {
    amount: 7
});

Glitch Transition

To transition between two elements by glitching the first element and then revealing the second element, pass a jQuery object as the first argument of the glitch function call.

$("#currentContent").glitch($("<div><p>New Content</p></div>"), {
    amount: 7,
    effect: "slide",
    complete: function(){
        // do something when the animation is complete
    }
});

On top of the glitch options, you can specify the following extra options for the transition:

effect	The transition effect to use. This may be "fade" or "slide" (default: fade)
delay	The delay after rendering the glitched element until starting the transition (default: 300)
duration	The duration of the transition effect (default: 500)
zIndex	The z-index to apply to the overlay. You might need to tweak this if you have things that appear above the element, or are using high z-indexes in your page
borderSize	The size of the top border. Set to 0 to disable, only used in slide mode
borderColor	The color of the top border, only used in slide mode

Notes

There are currently no checks for canvas support, so this will break in older browsers (IE8 and below.) Unfortunately excanvas won't help, as access is needed to the getBitmapData function to actually create the effect.

As html2canvas has to iterate over the contents of the element when rendering it to the canvas, it goes to stand that the more complex the dom, the longer the rendering will take. This is especially true of any images that are attached (including background images,) as they have to be re-loaded asynchronously by the browser. If there are any images from another domain, then they have to be loaded via a proxy to avoid tainting the canvas. So, it's wise to remove any unneeded elements from the dom before applying the effect.