Loop timer in JavaScript

Note that setTimeout and setInterval are very different functions:

• setTimeout will execute the code once, after the timeout.
• setInterval will execute the code forever, in intervals of the provided timeout.

Both functions return a timer ID which you can use to abort the timeout. All you have to do is store that value in a variable and use it as argument to clearTimeout(tid) or clearInterval(tid) respectively.

So, depending on what you want to do, you have two valid choices:

// set timeout
var tid = setTimeout(mycode, 2000);
function mycode() {
  // do some stuff...
  tid = setTimeout(mycode, 2000); // repeat myself
}
function abortTimer() { // to be called when you want to stop the timer
  clearTimeout(tid);
}

or

// set interval
var tid = setInterval(mycode, 2000);
function mycode() {
  // do some stuff...
  // no need to recall the function (it's an interval, it'll loop forever)
}
function abortTimer() { // to be called when you want to stop the timer
  clearInterval(tid);
}

Both are very common ways of achieving the same.

setInterval(moveItem, 2000);

is the way to execute the function moveItem every 2 seconds. The main problem in your code is that you're calling setInterval inside of, rather than outside of, the callback. If I understand what you're trying to do, you can use this:

function moveItem() {
    jQuery('.stripTransmitter ul li a').trigger('click');
}

setInterval(moveItem, 2000);

N.B.:Don't pass strings to setTimeout or setInterval - best practice is to pass an anonymous function or a function identifier (as I did above). Also, be careful to not mix single and double quotes. Pick one and stick with it.

I believe you are looking for setInterval()