Question

How do I use jQuery to read the first item in the contents of an XML file called music.xml, display them in a DIV for five seconds, read the next XML item and display that for five seconds, loop through the XML file and then start again from the beginning?

HTML:

<div id="music">
    <div id="albumcover"></div>
    <div id="songdescription"></div>
</div>

music.xml

<songs>
    <item>
        <image>music_01.jpg</image>
        <description>Description of first song</description>
    </item>
    <item>
        <image>music_02.jpg</image>
        <description>Description of second song</description>
    </item>
    <item>
        <image>music_03.jpg</image>
        <description>Description of third song</description>
    </item>
</songs>

Answer 1

First off, the way that I know how to parse these using jQuery will give problems with the image tag (edit: only if you parse text; XML turns out to be fine), as once you wrap it in jQuery it will convert <image>text</image> to <img>text. You can deal with that, but it’s not pretty. So let’s assume you’ve renamed <image> to <cover>.

Working jsFiddle, minus the $.ajax request part.

var music = [];
var musicIndex = -1;
var delay = 5000;
var intervalId; // in case you want to clearInterval
var $cover = $("#albumcover");
var $desc = $("#songdescription");

function rotateMusic() {
  // Loop back to the beginning if necessary
  if (++musicIndex === music.length) {
    musicIndex = 0;
  }
  console.log(music[musicIndex].cover);

  // Create a new image, tell it to append itself and description
  // once it's loaded, tell it to load
  $("<img>").load(function() {
    $cover.empty().append($(this));
    $desc.text(music[musicIndex].desc);
  }).attr("src", music[musicIndex].cover);
}

$.ajax({
  type: "GET",
  url: "music.xml",
  dataType: "xml",
  success: function(xml) {
             // Parse each item as a node
             $(xml).find('item').each(function() {
               // Add contents of item to music array
               var $item = $(this);
               music.push({
                 cover: $item.find('image').text(),
                 desc: $item.find('description').text()
               });

             });
             // Start rotating music, then set it to a delay
             rotateMusic();
             intervalId = setInterval(rotateMusic, delay);
           }
});