Equivalent of jQuery .hide() to set visibility: hidden

In jQuery, there are .hide() and .show() methods which sets the CSS display: none setting.

Is there an equivalent function which would set the visibility: hidden setting?

I know I can use .css() but I prefer some function like .hide() or so. Thanks.

You could make your own plugins.

jQuery.fn.visible = function() {
    return this.css('visibility', 'visible');
};

jQuery.fn.invisible = function() {
    return this.css('visibility', 'hidden');
};

jQuery.fn.visibilityToggle = function() {
    return this.css('visibility', function(i, visibility) {
        return (visibility == 'visible') ? 'hidden' : 'visible';
    });
};

If you want to overload the original jQuery toggle(), which I don't recommend...

!(function($) {
    var toggle = $.fn.toggle;
    $.fn.toggle = function() {
        var args = $.makeArray(arguments),
            lastArg = args.pop();

        if (lastArg == 'visibility') {
            return this.visibilityToggle();
        }

        return toggle.apply(this, arguments);
    };
})(jQuery);

jsFiddle.

There isn't one built in but you could write your own quite easily:

(function($) {
    $.fn.invisible = function() {
        return this.each(function() {
            $(this).css("visibility", "hidden");
        });
    };
    $.fn.visible = function() {
        return this.each(function() {
            $(this).css("visibility", "visible");
        });
    };
}(jQuery));

You can then call this like so:

$("#someElem").invisible();
$("#someOther").visible();

Here's a working example.

An even simpler way to do this is to use jQuery's toggleClass() method

CSS

.newClass{visibility: hidden}

HTML

<a href="#" class=trigger>Trigger Element </a>
<div class="hidden_element">Some Content</div>

JS

$(document).ready(function(){
    $(".trigger").click(function(){
        $(".hidden_element").toggleClass("newClass");
    });
});