var interval = 4000;
var newsitemsID   = "newsitems";
var messages =[];


var intervalTimer = 0;
var fadeTimer = 0;
var currentNum = 0;
var nextNum = -1;
var ftim = 0;

function tickerInit(){
	
	var nitems = document.getElementById(newsitemsID);
	messages = nitems.getElementsByTagName("li");
	
	for (i = 0; i < messages.length; i++) {
		messages[i].style.display="none";
	}
	 messages[0].style.display="inline";
	setOpacity000(100,  messages[0]);
	intervalTimer = setInterval("intervalTimerFunc()", interval);
 }
	
	
function intervalTimerFunc(){
	if (currentNum < 0) {currentNum = messages.length-1; }
	nextNum = currentNum + 1;
	if (nextNum >= messages.length){ nextNum = 0;}
	
	if (fadeTimer != 0) 
	{
		clearInterval(fadeTimer);
		fadeTimer = 0;
	}
	ftim = 100;
	fadeTimer = setInterval("fadeTimerFunc()", 100);
	
}

function fadeTimerFunc()
{
	ftim = ftim-16;
	setOpacity000(ftim,messages[currentNum]);
	if (ftim <=0 )
	{
		messages[currentNum].style.display="none";
		messages[nextNum].style.display="inline";
		setOpacity000(100,messages[nextNum]);
		currentNum = nextNum;
		clearInterval(fadeTimer);
		fadeTimer = 0;
	}
}

function setOpacity000(opacity, object) {
	if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Firefox") != -1) {
		if (opacity == 100) { opacity = 99.9999; } // This is majorly awkward
	}
	object.style.opacity = (opacity / 100);                 // Safari 1.2, Firefox+Mozilla
}