jQuery fadeOut without display none?
You can use .animate() on the opacity directly:
$(".selector").animate({ opacity: 0 })
This way the element still occupies space like you want, it just has a 0 opacity, so it's effectively the same as it being visibility: hidden when it finishes.
Yes, there's an alternative. It's called .fadeTo(), where you set the target opacity, which in your case will be 0.
$('element').fadeTo( 1000, 0 ); // fade to "0" with a 1000ms duration
This will not alter the display property at the end.