How do you invoke the highlight affect (similar to mouse over) progmatically in Javascript/Jquery?

Question

I am writing an interface where there will be a list of wide buttons, I want to be able to highlight a button based on a mouse being moved up or down. Selecting the button below the current highlighted button when the mouse moves down and selects the button above when the mouse moves up.

I was about to write a load of CSS manipulating Jquery code to do this, but something about doing that does not feel right.

Any suggestions welcome (including thats the way to do it fool)

Answer 1

Use CSS to highlight your button

Example:

button{color: green}
button:hover{color: red}