I once saw this effect on a flash RIA site. The visual effect is really good. Flash developers probably use this to show that applications made with flash are better than js in terms of dynamic effects (personal opinion). Later, when I was working on bmail, I used gif animation as the background and basically realized this function, but I always felt it was not perfect. This time, I used filters, which are visually smoother and save the trouble of downloading images.
]<script>
document.getElementById("tbList").onmousedown=function(e){
var tb=this,tr,ee
ee=e==null?event.srcElement:e.target
if(ee.tagName!="TD")
return
tr=ee.parentNode
if(tb.selRow!=null)
setTrReveal(tb.selRow,"background:white",1)
setTrReveal(tr,"background:#EAEAEA")
tb.selRow=tr
}
function setTrReveal(tr,css,noDelay){
var i
if(!document.all)
return tr.style.cssText+=";"+css
for(i=0;i< tr.cells.length;i++){
if(noDelay){
tr.cells[i].style.cssText+=";"+css
continue
}
tr.cells[i].style.filter="progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.RevealTrans(duration=0.5,transition=16)"
tr.cells[i].filters[0].apply()
tr.cells[i].style.cssText+=";"+css
tr.cells[i].filters[0].play()
}
}
</script>