Question

When using Jquery UI Sortable (which is great by the way) how do you get the item that is currently being sorted.

When you use $(this); it return the actual sortable list, not the current sorted item.

I want to do fancy-pants things with the widget when the user is dragging it around. E.g. Animate it when dragging between two lists.

So how do I get the current item being sorted?

There a little code below just to explain a little more…

$(function() {
    $("#sortable_1").sortable({
        start : function(event, ui){ 
            //get current element being sorted
        },
        stop : function(event, ui){ 
            //get current element being sorted
        }
    }).disableSelection();
});

Answer 1

As far as I’m aware ui in your start: function(event, ui) is the current element being sorted.

As pointed out in the comments ui.item is the current element.