jQuery / javaScript - append html string char-by-char on same line

Question

Looking for a way to slowly render text letter-by-letter (for a lack of a better description), I came across this solution. While this works fine for plain text, my problem is that I would like to append html-strings, i.e. text that has already been formatted with html-tags (<h1>, <p>, etc.). Since using jQuery's apend() fundction prints each letter on its own line, the resulting text cannot be parsed as html anymore and all I get inside my div is raw text (with visible html tags).

Now, is there any other way to do this while avoiding new lines?

I already tried using a jQuery animation on the width of a div pre-filled with my text (see here), but that doesn't look the way I want it to - when showing multi-line text it shows all lines at once, while I would like ti to be rendered letter by letter.

As always, thank you in advance and I'm looking forward to your suggestions!

My code so far:

function renderUI(levelId) {    
    [ unrelated code ]

    var showText = function (target, message, index, interval) {    
      if (index < message.length) { 
        $(target).append(message[index++]); 
        setTimeout(function () { showText(target, message, index, interval); }, interval); 
      } 
    };

    setTimeout(function() {
        $( "#introOverlay" ).slideDown(1000, function() {
            var target = $($("iframe").contents()).find("#ioMainLeft");
            var msg = target.html();
            target.html("");
            console.log(msg);
            showText(target, msg, 0, 16);
        });
    }, 3500);

    [ unrelated code ]
}

Answer 1

Where you looking for something like this http://jsfiddle.net/4hqCJ/5/ ?

var typeHiddenMsg = function (targetId, html, index, interval){
    if ( index == html.length ) return;

    $(targetId).html( html.substr(0,index) );

    setTimeout(function () {
        typeHiddenMsg(targetId, html, ++index, interval); 
    }, interval);
}

$(function () { 
  typeHiddenMsg("#target",$("#hidden_message").html(), 0, 100);    
});