I just found this article on the Scriptaculous Effect Queue and I’m sold. I’d been meaning to really dig into this library and wrap my head around how best to use it, if at all. Basically Scriptaculous is a visual and interface effects library. It features the tools for doing lots of snappy looking fade in, drop in, scroll out, etc. effects and also effects useful for data entry and interactivity (drag and drop, live search, etc.).

One problem encountred when putting these types of effects together into strings of animations and the like is that you can have various things collide. Enter the Effect Queue:

A queue is a list of events (in the current context Effects). These events take occur one after the other (or parallel) for the purpose of preventing disturbence of current actions.