The CSS Animations API Revolution

Imagine if you could bring websites to life, as if they were on a big stage in the spotlight, dancing, flowing, captivating – welcome to the magical world of the CSS Animations API. This is no ordinary tool, but the ace up the sleeve of every developer who dreams of smooth, performance-optimised animations.

Instead of laboriously navigating through endless lines of CSS animations or cluttering up JavaScript libraries, you can work directly with the core of the browser using the CSS Animations API. It allows you to control animations precisely and flexibly – without sacrificing performance. That’s not only practical, but also pretty darn cool!

What’s behind the CSS Animations API?

Imagine having the creative freedom of CSS transitions, coupled with precise control over timing and properties. Boom! Not only do your animations get a performance boost of up to 60%, but you can also customise them at runtime and choreograph complex movements.

What makes this API a must-have:

Performance machine: Render times are up to 60% faster than old-fashioned methods. Not only does your website load faster, it also feels smoother. Maximum control: With granular control over everything from keyframes to specific animation properties, you are the conductor.

The CSS Animations API in action

Best practices for animations:

• Timeline-based animations: Perfect for complex movements that require more than simple transitions.
• Progressive enhancement: Older browsers? No problem. Set fallbacks and ensure a solid base.

The disadvantage of the CSS Animations API: limited browser support for the timeline

One particularly exciting feature of the CSS Animations API is the timeline function. It gives developers the option of flexibly controlling animations along a timeline, enabling them to create smooth, user-centred effects. However, only Chrome currently fully supports this feature. Unfortunately, users of Firefox, Safari or Edge are still out of luck.

This means that when using the timeline function in other browsers, alternative solutions or fallbacks are necessary. For Chrome users, however, this feature is a game changer and makes creating animations easier and more intuitive.

With just a little code and no JavaScript, you can achieve an elegant fade-up scroll animation.

.fade-up {
	opacity: 0;
	transform: translateY(15vh);
	animation: fade-up linear  both;
	animation-timeline: view();
	animation-range: cover;
}
@keyframes  fade-up {
	25%,
	100% {
		opacity: 1;
		transform: translateY(0);
	}
}

The good news is that there are ongoing discussions and efforts to integrate this feature into other browsers. It remains to be seen whether and when Firefox, Safari and Edge will follow suit. Until then, developers should use progressive enhancement to ensure that websites remain fluid and interactive even in browsers without timeline support.

So grab a Chrome browser. It’s not my favourite browser either, unfortunately… and check out these incredible methods.

Scroll-driven animations

Would you like to use my expertise to advance your project? I am happy to help.

Here is my little demo.