Table Of ContentTransitions &
Animations
in CSS
ADDING MOTION WITH CSS
Estelle Weyl
Transitions and Animations in CSS
Adding Motion with CSS
Estelle Weyl
Boston
Transitions and Animations in CSS
by Estelle Weyl
Copyright © 2016 Estelle Weyl. All rights reserved.
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978-1-491-92988-9
[LSI]
Table of Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
1. CSS Transitions and Animations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
12 Basic Principles of Animation 1
Animation and Transition Considerations 5
2. Transitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CSS Transitions 8
Fallbacks: Transitions Are Enhancements 9
Transition Properties 10
The transition-property Property 14
The transition-duration Property 21
The transition-timing-function Property 24
The transition-delay Property 30
The transition Shorthand Property 38
In Reverse: Transitioning Back to Baseline 40
Animatable Properties and Values 42
How Property Values Are Interpolated 44
Animatable Properties 47
transition Events Revisited 53
3. Animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Keyframes 56
Setting Up Your Keyframe Animation 57
Keyframe Selectors 58
Omitting from and to Values 59
Repeating Keyframe Properties 60
Animatable Properties 61
iii
Nonanimatable Properties That Aren’t Ignored 62
Dynamically Changing @keyframes Animations 63
Animated Elements 64
The animation-name Property 64
The animation-duration Property 66
The animation-iteration-count Property 68
The animation-direction Property 69
The animation-delay Property 71
Animation Events 73
The animation-timing-function Property 83
The animation-play-state property 95
The animation-fill-mode Property 95
The animation Shorthand Property 99
Animation, Specificity, and Precedence Order 102
Specificity and !important 103
Animation Order 103
Animation Iteration and display: none; 104
Animation and the UI Thread 104
Seizure Disorders 104
Animation Events and Prefixing 105
animationstart 105
animationend 105
animationiteration 106
Other Considerations 106
Printing Animations 106
iv | Table of Contents
Preface
Conventions Used in This Book
The following typographical conventions are used in this book:
Italic
Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.
Constant width
Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program ele‐
ments such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment
variables, statements, and keywords.
Constant width bold
Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.
Constant width italic
Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values deter‐
mined by context.
This element signifies a general note.
Using Code Examples
Whenever you come across an icon that looks like , it means there is an associated
code example. Live examples are available at http://standardista.com/css3/transitions
and http://standardista.com/css3/animations. You can either click on the icon while
reading this book in electronic format to go directly to a live version of the code
v
example referenced, or visit those links for a list of all of the code examples found in
the Transitions and Animations chapters.
This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, if example code is offered
with this book, you may use it in your programs and documentation. You do not
need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of
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We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the
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by Estelle Weyl (O’Reilly). Copyright 2016 Estelle Weyl, 978-1-4919-2988-9.”
If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given
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vi | Preface
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to the technical reviewers:
Matt Rakow is a program manager at Microsoft, working on the Internet Explorer
and Edge browsers since 2010 and the W3C CSS Working Group since 2013. His cur‐
rent focus is advancing the capability and performance of webpage composition and
rendering, but also is devoted to improving scrolling performance, touch interac‐
tions, and high pixel density screen support.
David Baron is a distinguished engineer at Mozilla. He’s been involved in the CSS
community and the development of the Gecko layout engine since 1998. At Mozilla,
Baron implemented media queries, CSS transitions and animations, and the CSS
calc() function, and designed and implemented the reftest test format and fixes
for :visited privacy. As a participant at the W3C, he has edited the CSS Color Mod‐
ule, CSS Conditional Rules, CSS Transitions, CSS Animations, and the CSS Overflow
Module. He can be found on Twitter at @davidbaron, and on the Web.
Preface | vii
Sarah Drasner is an award-winning Senior UX Engineer at Trulia (Zillow Group).
She is also a staff writer at CSS-Tricks. She has worked for 15 years as a web developer
and designer, and at points worked concurrently as a scientific illustrator and a col‐
lege professor. Sarah loves SVG, informative animation, and welding together pieces
of the DOM. Follow her at @sarah_edo, on CodePen, or her website.
viii | Preface
Description:Add life and depth to your web applications and improve user experience through the discrete use of CSS transitions and animations. With this concise guide, you’ll learn how to make page elements move or change in appearance, whether you want to realistically bounce a ball, gradually expand a drop