Re: [css3-animations] Effect of display:none and visibility:hidden on animations

Dean's proposal also doesn't deal with the asynchronous nature of events. It
simplifies access to the existing functionality but doesn't solve its
problems.

I agree that there is a need for APIs to pause and manipulate animationa
(see http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Mar/0624.html) but it
would also be very helpful if there was a way to describe an animation
through CSS.
The biggest advantage would be performance since the CSS is interpreted
directly by native code in the browser.
Another advantage is editability. Users and design applications would be
able to read the animation CSS back in and modify it. This would be
impossible if animation is done through JS.
For instance animations that are generated by swiffy or smokescreen can not
be read in by any other programs.


I get the part about wrapping the animations into a display:none parent
(though, again, this doesn’t address the perfectly reasonable use-case where
you want the initial state of the animation to be visible).


Do you want the animation to run once the page loads?
In that case, just don't create the outer <div> with 'display: none'

Or do you want the whole animation to be paused to its initial state
(including the subanimations)?
Don't create the outer <div> and set the playstate of the all the animations
to 'paused'. Once the event occurs that starts the movie, set all the
animations to 'running'.

Looking at how our flash users create content, having the movie paused is
not a very common use case. Most of the time, content is put on the stage
and animates immediately.
A possible exception are content preloaders but I think HTML can solve this
more elegantly since it is not frame based.

Rik


On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com>wrote:

>  I get the part about wrapping the animations into a display:none parent
> (though, again, this doesn’t address the perfectly reasonable use-case where
> you want the initial state of the animation to be visible). ****
>
> ** **
>
> Your proposal suggests to me that we’re missing an animation API. Authors
> shouldn’t have to monkey around with display and create display:none frames
> for the purpose of achieving synchronization. To be more specific, I would
> like scenarios like these to be addressed as part of proposals such as
> Dean’s here
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Apr/0058.html. ****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* Rik Cabanier [mailto:cabanier@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 19, 2011 4:35 PM
>
> *To:* Sylvain Galineau
> *Cc:* www-style@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: [css3-animations] Effect of display:none and
> visibility:hidden on animations****
>
>  ** **
>
> I've posted about this before on the forum. See:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Mar/0624.html****
>
> ** **
>
> Basically, if you have to rely on JavaScript to trigger animations, it
> becomes impossible to keep everything in sync because the clock keeps on
> ticking while your script run.****
>
> The more complicated or faster-switching your animations are. the worse
> this problem will become.****
>
> Having support for 'display' in the keyframes structure would do away with
> scripting.****
>
> ie the css+html for a simple animation with 3 true keyframes would look
> like:****
>
> ** **
>
> @keyframes KF_1 {****
>
> from{ display: block;}****
>
> 33%{ display: none;}****
>
> }****
>
> .k1{****
>
> animation-name: KF_1;****
>
> display: none;****
>
> }****
>
> ** **
>
> @keyframes KF_2 {****
>
> 33%{ display: block;}****
>
> 66%{ display: none;}****
>
> }****
>
> .k2{****
>
> animation-name: KF_2;****
>
> display: none;****
>
> }****
>
> ** **
>
> @keyframes KF_3 {****
>
> 66%{ display: block;}****
>
> to{ display: none;}****
>
> }****
>
> .k3{****
>
> animation-name: KF_3;****
>
> display: none;****
>
> }****
>
> ** **
>
> html:****
>
> <div style="display:none">****
>
> <img class="k1" src="frame1.svg">****
>
> <img class="k2" src="frame2.svg">****
>
> <img class="k3" src="frame3.svg">****
>
> </div>****
>
> ** **
>
> If you now make the outer div visible, the animation will run.****
>
> The idiom will also extend if you have nested animations.****
>
> ** **
>
> My original email also proposes to add pseudo selectors to the keyframe
> structure. This is just to make the notation easier and make the size of the
> CSS smaller.****
>
> With pseudo selectors, the example above could be described with 1 keyframe
> structure and 1 style.****
>
> ** **
>
> Rik****
>
> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 3:22 PM, Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com>
> wrote:****
>
> I would expect the animation-play-state to be the property for this
> behavior as I do not think it is safe to assume that an initially suspended
> animation will always also be invisible.****
>
>  ****
>
> With this caveat, I don’t get how or why allowing display:none in
> @keyframes enables synchronization ?****
>
>  ****
>
> *From:* Rik Cabanier [mailto:cabanier@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 19, 2011 11:56 AM
> *To:* Sylvain Galineau
> *Cc:* www-style@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: [css3-animations] Effect of display:none and
> visibility:hidden on animations****
>
>  ****
>
> I think WebKit's behavior is more useful since it lets you predefine an
> animation (with potentially nested animations) and then trigger it with 1
> state change.****
>
>  ****
>
> This is also why it would be very useful if 'display' was allowed in the
> keyframes structure. It would allow users to construct intricate animations
> that would stay in sync with each other.****
>
>  ****
>
> Rik****
>
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com>
> wrote:****
>
> The specification does not define what should happen for visibility:hidden
> or display:none. In the former case, one expects the animation to run and
> have the normal layout impact of a visibility:hidden element. This is the
> case in Webkit and Gecko.
>
> There does not seem to be agreement for display:none yet; WebKit does not
> run the animation and applying display:none resets the animation. But
> getComputedStyle() indicates Gecko animates the specified properties when
> display is none.
>
> WebKit's behavior is certainly performance-friendly; Gecko's is what I
> would expect though i.e. if my 2mn animation was script-based and the
> element had display:none for the first minute, setting display:block at the
> 61st second would reflect the state of the element at that point in the
> animation's timeline.
>
> Thoughts ?****
>
>  ****
>
> ** **
>