@colglazierj, I’m guessing it wasn’t done with javascript, but rather with variables. I’ll refer to the vertically scrolling text, (but a similar concept would explain the jittery text as well).
If instead of specifying a precise y value for the text, you were to set the y value of the text to be equal to a variable (ylocation), you could then update the value of the ylocation variable inside the draw loop … (ylocation = ylocation -1); This would then cause the text to move vertically across the screen.
Here’s a working example (using horizontally scrolling text).
Hope this helps!
Mike