CSS Animations

CSS Animations is a proposed module for Cascading Style Sheets that allows the animation of HTML document elements using CSS.

While the pseudo-class :hover has been used to generate rudimentary animations for years, extensions of CSS into the realm of animation were minimal until the late 2000s decade. As early as 2007, WebKit had announced its intent to include CSS animation, transitions, and transforms as features of WebKit. It also announced the implementation of both implicit and explicit animation through CSS in February 2009. CSS animation has also been put forth as a feature of CSS3, the ongoing draft specification managed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

As of June 2011, Firefox 5 includes CSS Animation support. CSS animation is also available as a module in the nightly builds of WebKit as well as Google Chrome, Safari 4 and 5 and Safari for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), Android versions 2.x and 3.x, the BlackBerry OS 6 web browser, with the -webkit- prefix. It is also used in iTunes 9 to support iTunes LP files.

Future support: Opera v12+ will support CSS3 animations and transformations with -o- prefix Internet Explorer 10+ will support CSS3 animations and transformations with -ms- prefix

Early on in the development of the CSS animation it had drawn concern from those who prefer animation via JavaScript or, to a lesser-used extent, Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL); others have claimed that it is a move by Apple Inc., the main sponsor of the WebKit project, to sidestep the inclusion of Adobe Flash (and the incumbent Flash animations) on the company's iOS line of mobile devices which use Safari.

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