Question

I have a div like this:

<div class="someDiv">
<span>This content should remain</span>
 The rest of this content needs to be hidden (Faded out)
</div>

I can’t change the actual structure of the HTML.

Answer 1

Use the visibility CSS attribute:

$('.someDiv').css('visibility','hidden')
    .find('span').css('visibility','visible');

http://jsfiddle.net/mblase75/WtMea/

I don’t think it’s possible to fade the outer div without also fading everything inside of it, but visibility can be overridden.