In early 2004, 37 Signals popularized the Yellow Fade Technique. Lots of variations followed. Recently, I’ve had to use the YFT on one of my projects but I didn’t like any of the existing alternatives including 37 Signal’s own YFT implementation.  And so, I offer my variation to the YFT.

// Yellow fade technique
var yft = {
  _shade: {1:'ff', 2:'ee', 3:'dd', 4:'cc', 5:'bb', 6:'aa', 7:'99'},
  fadeIn: function(e,i) {
      if (i >= 1) {
      var elem = $(e)
      if (elem) elem.style.backgroundColor = '#ffff' + this._shade[i];
      else return;
        if (i > 1) {
        i -= 1;
          setTimeout("yft.fadeIn('"+elem.id+"',"+i+")", 200);
        } else {
        i -= 1;
        setTimeout("yft.fadeIn('"+elem.id+"',"+i+")", 200);
        elem.style.backgroundColor = "transparent";
      }
    }
  }
}

Note, that this does require the use of Prototype.