Tutorial Shuffle DOM Elements
This is from James Padolsey. Check out his article for a pure JavaScript technique as well.
Plugin
(function($){
$.fn.shuffle = function() {
var allElems = this.get(),
getRandom = function(max) {
return Math.floor(Math.random() * max);
},
shuffled = $.map(allElems, function(){
var random = getRandom(allElems.length),
randEl = $(allElems[random]).clone(true)[0];
allElems.splice(random, 1);
return randEl;
});
this.each(function(i){
$(this).replaceWith($(shuffled[i]));
});
return $(shuffled);
};
})(jQuery);Usage
Target elements, call shuffle.
$('ul#list li').shuffle();