Jquery background colour change animate not working

Question

I want to change the background of an inputbox from white to another colour and then back to white again in a slow fading way. i have tried the animate it simply doesn't work. there is no error.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/jsp/ui/jquery-ui/js/jquery-1.8.3.min.js"></script>
...
$(document.getElementById(id)).animate({ backgroundColor: "#4E1402" }, 500);

update

This works fine

$(document.getElementById(id)).animate({ width: "400px" }, 500);

Answer 1

jQuery cannot animate color. Use this plugin instead.

http://www.bitstorm.org/jquery/color-animation/

( just a 4kb addition )

Or the jquery UI animate :

http://jqueryui.com/animate/ ( as mentioned by @Adam below )