Re: transitions vs. animations

On Apr 4, 2010, at 3:12 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Perry Smith <pedzsan@gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> Perhaps instead of calling them 'states' or 'state changes', call  
>> them
>> 'events'.  I'm new to this list so I don't understand Håkon's  
>> statement,
>> "We'd like to do this without adding an event model to CSS."  It  
>> may be that
>> my way of thinking opens a can of worms that has already been  
>> discussed.
>>
>> First, it solves Simon's concerns because the event would not  
>> happen when a
>> class is added or removed.
>
> It doesn't solve the concerns so much as eliminate them, because it
> makes transitions much weaker.  A lot of transition usage will be
> based on :hover, :focus, etc., but a lot of it *won't* be.  There are
> tons of places in code that I've written where I'd like to animate
> some property change triggered by me swapping classes.
>
> Simon points out, correctly, that trying to hack an event model that
> responds to arbitrary selector matching changes would turn super-crazy
> very quickly.  Both in terms of simple mechanics, and in terms of what
> authors have to keep track of (the 'combinatorial explosion' he
> mentions).

I clearly don't understand the objective.

If the user already is using javascript to change classes, then he can  
define the animations like script.aculo.us and others do.

I thought the desire was to have something so, lets call them "graphic  
artists", can use without knowing or mucking with JS.  Someone used  
the term "declarative".  I took that to mean something I can declare  
in CSS alone.

Lars appears to have the opinion that the desire of some is to have  
these animations ONLY be when classes are changed.  That really  
doesn't make any sense to me.

If anyone cares to clarify their objective(s) as far as where does CSS  
end and where does JS begin, it would help me a great deal.  I really  
would like to understand.  I'm sure I am unimaginative when it comes  
to animations because the current technology (using Javascript) does  
everything I want.

Perry

Received on Sunday, 4 April 2010 23:38:19 UTC