Rotating a Div Element in jQuery

To rotate a DIV Make use of WebkitTransform / -moz-transform: rotate(Xdeg).

This will not work in IE. The Raphael library does work with IE and it does rotation. I believe it uses canvases

If you want to animate the rotation, you can use a recursive setTimeout()

You could probably even do part of a spin with jQuery's .animate()

Make sure that you consider the width of your element. If rotate an that has a larger width than its visible content, you'll get funny results. However you can narrow the widths of elements, and then rotate them.

Here is a simply jQuery snippet that rotates the elements in a jQuery object. Rotatation can be started and stopped:

$(function() {
    var $elie = $(selectorForElementsToRotate);
    rotate(0);
    function rotate(degree) {

          // For webkit browsers: e.g. Chrome
        $elie.css({ WebkitTransform: 'rotate(' + degree + 'deg)'});
          // For Mozilla browser: e.g. Firefox
        $elie.css({ '-moz-transform': 'rotate(' + degree + 'deg)'});

          // Animate rotation with a recursive call
        setTimeout(function() { rotate(++degree); },5);
    }
});

jsFiddle example

Note:
Taking the degree and increasing it, will rotate the image clockwise. Decreasing the degree of rotation will rotate the image counter clockwise.

yeah you're not going to have much luck i think. Typically across the 3 drawing methods the major browsers use (Canvas, SVG, VML), text support is poor, I believe. If you want to rotate an image, then it's all good, but if you've got mixed content with formatting and styles, probably not.

Check out RaphaelJS for a cross-browser drawing API.

Cross-browser rotate for any element. Works in IE7 and IE8. In IE7 it looks like not working in JSFiddle but in my project worked also in IE7

http://jsfiddle.net/RgX86/24/

var elementToRotate = $('#rotateMe');
var degreeOfRotation = 33;

var deg = degreeOfRotation;
var deg2radians = Math.PI * 2 / 360;
var rad = deg * deg2radians ;
var costheta = Math.cos(rad);
var sintheta = Math.sin(rad);

var m11 = costheta;
var m12 = -sintheta;
var m21 = sintheta;
var m22 = costheta;
var matrixValues = 'M11=' + m11 + ', M12='+ m12 +', M21='+ m21 +', M22='+ m22;

elementToRotate.css('-webkit-transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
    .css('-moz-transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
    .css('-ms-transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
    .css('transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
    .css('filter', 'progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(sizingMethod=\'auto expand\','+matrixValues+')')
    .css('-ms-filter', 'progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(SizingMethod=\'auto expand\','+matrixValues+')');

Edit 13/09/13 15:00 Wrapped in a nice and easy, chainable, jquery plugin.

Example of use

$.fn.rotateElement = function(angle) {
    var elementToRotate = this,
        deg = angle,
        deg2radians = Math.PI * 2 / 360,
        rad = deg * deg2radians ,
        costheta = Math.cos(rad),
        sintheta = Math.sin(rad),

        m11 = costheta,
        m12 = -sintheta,
        m21 = sintheta,
        m22 = costheta,
        matrixValues = 'M11=' + m11 + ', M12='+ m12 +', M21='+ m21 +', M22='+ m22;

    elementToRotate.css('-webkit-transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
        .css('-moz-transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
        .css('-ms-transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
        .css('transform','rotate('+deg+'deg)')
        .css('filter', 'progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(sizingMethod=\'auto expand\','+matrixValues+')')
        .css('-ms-filter', 'progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Matrix(SizingMethod=\'auto expand\','+matrixValues+')');
    return elementToRotate;
}

$element.rotateElement(15);

JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/RgX86/175/

Here are two jQuery patches to help out (maybe already included in jQuery by the time you are reading this):

• Patching jQuery css() Method to Support 'transform'
• jQuery Patch: Animate CSS Rotation and Scale

EDIT: Updated for jQuery 1.8

jQuery 1.8 will add browser specific transformations. jsFiddle Demo

var rotation = 0;

jQuery.fn.rotate = function(degrees) {
    $(this).css({'transform' : 'rotate('+ degrees +'deg)'});
    return $(this);
};

$('.rotate').click(function() {
    rotation += 5;
    $(this).rotate(rotation);
});

EDIT: Added code to make it a jQuery function.

For those of you who don't want to read any further, here you go. For more details and examples, read on. jsFiddle Demo.

var rotation = 0;

jQuery.fn.rotate = function(degrees) {
    $(this).css({'-webkit-transform' : 'rotate('+ degrees +'deg)',
                 '-moz-transform' : 'rotate('+ degrees +'deg)',
                 '-ms-transform' : 'rotate('+ degrees +'deg)',
                 'transform' : 'rotate('+ degrees +'deg)'});
    return $(this);
};

$('.rotate').click(function() {
    rotation += 5;
    $(this).rotate(rotation);
});

EDIT: One of the comments on this post mentioned jQuery Multirotation. This plugin for jQuery essentially performs the above function with support for IE8. It may be worth using if you want maximum compatibility or more options. But for minimal overhead, I suggest the above function. It will work IE9+, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and many others.

Bobby... This is for the people who actually want to do it in the javascript. This may be required for rotating on a javascript callback.

Here is a jsFiddle.

If you would like to rotate at custom intervals, you can use jQuery to manually set the css instead of adding a class. Like this! I have included both jQuery options at the bottom of the answer.

HTML

<div class="rotate">
    <h1>Rotatey text</h1>
</div>

CSS

/* Totally for style */
.rotate {
    background: #F02311;
    color: #FFF;
    width: 200px;
    height: 200px;
    text-align: center;
    font: normal 1em Arial;
    position: relative;
    top: 50px;
    left: 50px;
}

/* The real code */
.rotated {
    -webkit-transform: rotate(45deg);  /* Chrome, Safari 3.1+ */
    -moz-transform: rotate(45deg);  /* Firefox 3.5-15 */
    -ms-transform: rotate(45deg);  /* IE 9 */
    -o-transform: rotate(45deg);  /* Opera 10.50-12.00 */
    transform: rotate(45deg);  /* Firefox 16+, IE 10+, Opera 12.10+ */
}

jQuery

Make sure these are wrapped in $(document).ready

$('.rotate').click(function() {
    $(this).toggleClass('rotated');
});

Custom intervals

var rotation = 0;
$('.rotate').click(function() {
    rotation += 5;
    $(this).css({'-webkit-transform' : 'rotate('+ rotation +'deg)',
                 '-moz-transform' : 'rotate('+ rotation +'deg)',
                 '-ms-transform' : 'rotate('+ rotation +'deg)',
                 'transform' : 'rotate('+ rotation +'deg)'});
});