- Animate.css
- Basic usage
- Using @keyframes
- CSS Custom Properties (CSS Variables)
- Utility Classes
- Delay classes
- Slow, slower, fast, and Faster classes
- Repeating classes
- Best Practices
- Meaningful animations
- Don’t animate large elements
- Don’t animate root elements
- Infinite animations should be avoided
- Mind the initial and final state of your elements
- Don’t disable the prefers-reduced-motion media query
- Gotchas
- You can’t animate inline elements
- Overflow
- Intervals between repeats
- Usage with Javascript
- Migration from v3.x and Under
- Custom Builds
- Changing the default prefix
- Accessibility
- Core Team
- License and Contributing
- Contributing
- Code of Conduct
Animate.css
Or install with Yarn (this will only work with appropriate tooling like Webpack, Parcel, etc. If you are not using any tool for packing or bundling your code, you can simply use the CDN method below):
Basic usage
After installing Animate.css, add the class animate__animated to an element, along with any of the animation names (don’t forget the animate__ prefix!):
Animations can improve the UX of an interface, but keep in mind that they can also get in the way of your users! Please read the best practices and gotchas sections to bring your web-things to life in the best way possible.
Using @keyframes
Even though the library provides you a few helper classes like the animated class to get you up running quickly, you can directly use the provided animations keyframes . This provides a flexible way to use Animate.css with your current projects without having to refactor your HTML code. Example:
Be aware that some animations are dependent on the animation-timing property set on the animation’s class. Changing or not declaring it might lead to unexpected results.
CSS Custom Properties (CSS Variables)
Since version 4, Animate.css uses custom properties (also known as CSS variables) to define the animation’s duration, delay, and iterations. This makes Animate.css very flexible and customizable. Need to change an animation duration? Just set a new value globally or locally. Example:
/* This only changes this particular animation duration */ .animate__animated.animate__bounce < --animate-duration: 2s; >/* This changes all the animations globally */ :root
Custom properties also make it easy to change all your animation’s time-constrained properties on the fly. It means that you can have a slow-motion or time-lapse effect with a javascript one-liner:
// All animations will take twice the time to accomplish document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--animate-duration', '2s'); // All animations will take half the time to accomplish document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--animate-duration', '.5s');
Even though some aging browsers do not support custom properties, Animate.css provides a proper fallback, widening its support for any browser that supports CSS animations. Edit this on GitHub
Utility Classes
Delay classes
Animate.css provides the following delays:
Class name | Default delay time |
---|---|
animate__delay-2s | 2s |
animate__delay-3s | 3s |
animate__delay-4s | 4s |
animate__delay-5s | 5s |
The provided delays are from 1 to 5 seconds. You can customize them setting the —animate-delay property to a longer or a shorter duration:
/* All delay classes will take 2x longer to start */ :root < --animate-delay: 2s; >/* All delay classes will take half the time to start */ :root
Slow, slower, fast, and Faster classes
Class name | Default speed time |
---|---|
animate__slow | 2s |
animate__slower | 3s |
animate__fast | 800ms |
animate__faster | 500ms |
The animate__animated class has a default speed of 1s . You can also customize the animations duration through the —animate-duration property, globally or locally. This will affect both the animations and the utility classes. Example:
/* All animations will take twice as long to finish */ :root < --animate-duration: 2s; >/* Only this element will take half the time to finish */ .my-element
Notice that some animations have a duration of less than 1 second. As we used the CSS calc() function, setting the duration through the —animation-duration property will respect these ratios. So, when you change the global duration, all the animations will respond to that change!
Repeating classes
Class Name | Default iteration count |
---|---|
animate__repeat-1 | 1 |
animate__repeat-2 | 2 |
animate__repeat-3 | 3 |
animate__infinite | infinite |
As with the delay and speed classes, the animate__repeat class is based on the —animate-repeat property and has a default iteration count of 1 . You can customize them by setting the —animate-repeat property to a longer or a shorter value:
/* The element will repeat the animation 2x It's better to set this property locally and not globally or you might end up with a messy situation */ .my-element
Notice that animate__infinite doesn’t use any custom property, and changes to —animate-repeat will have no effect. Don’t forget to read the best practices section to make the best use of repeating animations. Edit this on GitHub
Best Practices
Animations can greatly improve an interface’s UX, but it’s important to follow some guidelines to not overdo it and deteriorate the user experience on your web-things. Following the following rules should provide a good start.
Meaningful animations
You should avoid animating an element just for the sake of it. Keep in mind that animations should make an intention clear. Animations like attention seekers (bounce, flash, pulse, etc) should be used to bring the user’s attention to something special in your interface and not only as a way to bring «flashiness» to it. Entrances and exit animations should be used to orientate what is happening in the interface, clearly signaling that it’s transitioning into a new state. It doesn’t mean that you should avoid adding playfulness to the interface, just be sure that the animations are not getting in the way of your user and that the page’s performance is not affected by an exaggerated use of animations.
Don’t animate large elements
Avoid it as it won’t bring much value to the user and will probably only cause confusion. Besides that, there is a good chance that the animations will be junky, culminating in bad UX.
Don’t animate root elements
Animating the
or tags is possible, but you should avoid it. There were some reports pointing out that this could trigger some weird browser bugs. Besides, making the whole page bounce would hardly provide good value to your UX. If you indeed need this sort of effect, wrap your page in an element and animate it, like this:Infinite animations should be avoided
Even though Animate.css provides utility classes for repeating animations, including an infinite one, you should avoid endless animations. It will just distract your users and might annoy a good slice of them. So, use it wisely!
Mind the initial and final state of your elements
All the Animate.css animations include a CSS property called animation-fill-mode , which controls the states of an element before and after animation. You can read more about it here. Animate.css defaults to animation-fill-mode: both , but you can change it to suit your needs.
Don’t disable the prefers-reduced-motion media query
Since version 3.7.0 Animate.css supports the prefers-reduced-motion media query which disables animations based on the OS system’s preference on supporting browsers (most current browsers support it). This is a critical accessibility feature and should never be disabled! This is built into browsers to help people with vestibular and seizure disorders. You can read more about it here. If your web-thing needs the animations to function, warn users, but don’t disable the feature. You can do it easily with CSS only. Here’s a simple example: See the Pen Prefers-reduce-motion media query by Elton Mesquita (@eltonmesquita) on CodePen.
Gotchas
You can’t animate inline elements
Even though some browsers can animate inline elements, this goes against the CSS animation specs and will break on some browsers or eventually cease to work. Always animate block or inline-block level elements (grid and flex containers and children are block-level elements too). You can set an element to display: inline-block when animating an inline-level element.
Overflow
Most of the Animate.css animations will move elements across the screen and might create scrollbars on your web-thing. This is manageable using the overflow: hidden property. There’s no recipe to when and where to use it, but the basic idea is to use it in the parent holding the animated element. It’s up to you to figure out when and how to use it, this guide can help you understand it.
Intervals between repeats
Unfortunately, this isn’t possible with pure CSS right now. You have to use Javascript to achieve this result. Edit this on GitHub
Usage with Javascript
You can do a whole bunch of other stuff with animate.css when you combine it with Javascript. A simple example:
const element = document.querySelector('.my-element'); element.classList.add('animate__animated', 'animate__bounceOutLeft');
const element = document.querySelector('.my-element'); element.classList.add('animate__animated', 'animate__bounceOutLeft'); element.addEventListener('animationend', () => < // do something >);
const element = document.querySelector('.my-element'); element.style.setProperty('--animate-duration', '0.5s');
const animateCSS = (element, animation, prefix = 'animate__') => // We create a Promise and return it new Promise((resolve, reject) => < const animationName = `$$`; const node = document.querySelector(element); node.classList.add(`$animated`, animationName); // When the animation ends, we clean the classes and resolve the Promise function handleAnimationEnd(event) < event.stopPropagation(); node.classList.remove(`$animated`, animationName); resolve('Animation ended'); > node.addEventListener('animationend', handleAnimationEnd, ); >);
animateCSS('.my-element', 'bounce'); // or animateCSS('.my-element', 'bounce').then((message) => < // Do something after the animation >);
If you had a hard time understanding the previous function, have a look at const, classList, arrow functions, and Promises. Edit this on GitHub
Migration from v3.x and Under
Animate.css v4 brought some improvements, improved animations, and new animations, which makes it worth upgrading. However, it also comes with a breaking change: we have added a prefix for all of the Animate.css classes — defaulting to animate__ — so a direct migration is impossible. But fear not! Although the default build, animate.min.css , brings the animate__ prefix we also provide the animate.compat.css file which brings no prefix at all, like the previous versions (3.x and under). If you’re using a bundler, update your import: from:
Notice that depending on your project’s configuration, this might change a bit. In case of using a CDN, update the link in your HTML: from:
In the case of a new project, it’s highly recommended to use the default prefixed version as it’ll make sure that you’ll hardly have classes conflicting with your project. Besides, in later versions, we might decide to discontinue the animate.compat.css file. Edit this on GitHub
Custom Builds
Custom builds are not possible from a node_modules folder as we don’t ship the building tools in the npm module. Animate.css is powered by npm, postcss + postcss-preset-env, which means you can create custom builds pretty easily, using future CSS with proper fallbacks. First of all, you’ll need Node and all other dependencies:
$ git clone https://github.com/animate-css/animate.css.git $ cd animate.css $ npm install
- animate.css : raw build, easy to read and without any optimization
- animate.min.css : minified build ready for production
- animate.compat.css : minified build ready for production without class prefix. This should only be used as an easy path for migrations.
For example, if you’ll only use some of the “attention seekers” animations, simply edit the ./source/animate.css file, delete every @import and the ones you want to use.
@import 'attention_seekers/bounce.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/flash.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/pulse.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/rubberBand.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/shake.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/headShake.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/swing.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/tada.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/wobble.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/jello.css'; @import 'attention_seekers/heartBeat.css';
Now, just run npm start and your highly optimized build will be generated at the root of the project.
Changing the default prefix
It’s pretty straight forward to change animate’s prefix on your custom build. Change the animateConfig ‘s prefix property in the package.json file and rebuild the library with npm start :
/* on Animate.css package.json */ "animateConfig": < "prefix": "myCustomPrefix__" >,
Accessibility
Animate.css supports the prefers-reduced-motion media query so that users with motion sensitivity can opt out of animations. On supported platforms (currently all the major browsers and OS, including mobile), users can select «reduce motion» on their operating system preferences, and it will turn off CSS transitions for them without any further work required.
Core Team
License and Contributing
Animate.css is licensed under the Hippocratic License.
Contributing
Pull requests are the way to go here. We only have two rules for submitting a pull request: match the naming convention (camelCase, categorized [fades, bounces, etc.]) and let us see a demo of submitted animations in a pen. That last one is important.
Code of Conduct
This project and everyone participating in it is governed by the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code. Please report unacceptable behavior to animate@eltonmesquita.com.
Animate.css is a Hippocratic-2.1 licensed library. You can use it freely, respecting the terms included in the license file.
Hey! It seems that you have animations disabled on your OS, turning Animate.css off.
Animate.css supports the prefers-reduced-motion CSS media feature . You can read more about it here .