Did you see that neat technique for using the
After we shared that in our newsletter, we got an interesting reply from Michael Gale:
What about folks who love their animated GIFs, but just didn’t want the UI to be zooming all over the place? Are they now forced to make a choice between content and UI?
I thought that was a pretty interesting question.
Also, whenever I see 
these days, my brain is triggered into WELL WHAT ABOUT MP4?! territory, as I’ve been properly convinced that videos are better-in-all-ways on the web than GIFs. Turns out, some browsers support videos right within the element and, believe it or not, you can write fallbacks for that, with — drumroll, please — for the
Let’s take a crack at combining all this stuff.
Adding an MP4 source
The easy one is adding an additional
- A fallback non-animated graphic when prefers-reduced-motion is reduce.
- An animated GIF as the default.
- An MP4 video to replace the GIF, if the fallback is supported.
For example:
<picture> <source srcset="static.png" media="(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)"></source> <source srcset="animated.mp4" type="video/mp4"> <img srcset="animated.gif" alt="animated image"> </source></picture>
Under default conditions in Chrome, only the GIF is downloaded and shown:
Under default conditions in Safari, only the MP4 is downloaded and shown:
If you’ve activated prefers-reduced-motion: reduce in either Chrome or Safari (on my Mac, I go to System Preferences → Accessibility → Display → Reduce Motion), both browsers only download the static PNG file.
I tested Firefox and it doesn’t seem to work, instead continuing to download the GIF version. Firefox seems to support prefers-reduced-motion, but perhaps it’s just not supported on
Wouldn’t it be kinda cool to provide a single animated source and have a tool generate the others from it? I bet you could wire that up with something like Cloudinary.
Adding a toggle to show the animated version
Like Michael Gale mentioned, it seems a pity that you’re entirely locked out from seeing the animated version just because you’ve flipped on a reduced motion toggle.
It should be easy enough to have a
I’m fairly sure there is no practical way to do this declaratively in HTML. We also can’t put this button within the
<div>
<picture>
<!-- sources -->
</picture>
<button>Animate</button>
</div>
We can position the button on top of the image somewhere. This is just an arbitrary choice — you could put it wherever you want, or even have the entire image be tappable as long as you think you could explain that to users. Remember to only show the button when the same media query matches:
.picture-wrap .animate-button {
display: none;
}
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.picture-wrap .animate-button {
display: block;
}
}
When the button is clicked (or tapped), we need to remove the media query to start the animation by downloading an animated source.
let button = document.querySelector(".animate-button");
button.addEventListener("click", () => {
const parent = button.closest(".picture-wrap");
const picture = parent.querySelector("picture");
picture.querySelector("source[media]").remove();
});
Here’s that in action:
Maybe this is a good component?
We could automatically include the button, the button styling, and the button functionality with a web component. Hey, why not?
The above is the detailed content of Reduced Motion Picture Technique, Take Two. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!
Hot AI Tools
Undress AI Tool
Undress images for free
Undresser.AI Undress
AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos
AI Clothes Remover
Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.
Clothoff.io
AI clothes remover
Video Face Swap
Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!
Hot Article
Hot Tools
Notepad++7.3.1
Easy-to-use and free code editor
SublimeText3 Chinese version
Chinese version, very easy to use
Zend Studio 13.0.1
Powerful PHP integrated development environment
Dreamweaver CS6
Visual web development tools
SublimeText3 Mac version
God-level code editing software (SublimeText3)
CSS tutorial for creating loading spinners and animations
Jul 07, 2025 am 12:07 AM
There are three ways to create a CSS loading rotator: 1. Use the basic rotator of borders to achieve simple animation through HTML and CSS; 2. Use a custom rotator of multiple points to achieve the jump effect through different delay times; 3. Add a rotator in the button and switch classes through JavaScript to display the loading status. Each approach emphasizes the importance of design details such as color, size, accessibility and performance optimization to enhance the user experience.
Addressing CSS Browser Compatibility issues and prefixes
Jul 07, 2025 am 01:44 AM
To deal with CSS browser compatibility and prefix issues, you need to understand the differences in browser support and use vendor prefixes reasonably. 1. Understand common problems such as Flexbox and Grid support, position:sticky invalid, and animation performance is different; 2. Check CanIuse confirmation feature support status; 3. Correctly use -webkit-, -moz-, -ms-, -o- and other manufacturer prefixes; 4. It is recommended to use Autoprefixer to automatically add prefixes; 5. Install PostCSS and configure browserslist to specify the target browser; 6. Automatically handle compatibility during construction; 7. Modernizr detection features can be used for old projects; 8. No need to pursue consistency of all browsers,
What is the difference between display: inline, display: block, and display: inline-block?
Jul 11, 2025 am 03:25 AM
Themaindifferencesbetweendisplay:inline,block,andinline-blockinHTML/CSSarelayoutbehavior,spaceusage,andstylingcontrol.1.Inlineelementsflowwithtext,don’tstartonnewlines,ignorewidth/height,andonlyapplyhorizontalpadding/margins—idealforinlinetextstyling
Creating custom shapes with css clip-path
Jul 09, 2025 am 01:29 AM
Use the clip-path attribute of CSS to crop elements into custom shapes, such as triangles, circular notches, polygons, etc., without relying on pictures or SVGs. Its advantages include: 1. Supports a variety of basic shapes such as circle, ellipse, polygon, etc.; 2. Responsive adjustment and adaptable to mobile terminals; 3. Easy to animation, and can be combined with hover or JavaScript to achieve dynamic effects; 4. It does not affect the layout flow, and only crops the display area. Common usages are such as circular clip-path:circle (50pxatcenter) and triangle clip-path:polygon (50%0%, 100 0%, 0 0%). Notice
Styling visited links differently with CSS
Jul 11, 2025 am 03:26 AM
Setting the style of links you have visited can improve the user experience, especially in content-intensive websites to help users navigate better. 1. Use CSS's: visited pseudo-class to define the style of the visited link, such as color changes; 2. Note that the browser only allows modification of some attributes due to privacy restrictions; 3. The color selection should be coordinated with the overall style to avoid abruptness; 4. The mobile terminal may not display this effect, and it is recommended to combine it with other visual prompts such as icon auxiliary logos.
What is the CSS Painting API?
Jul 04, 2025 am 02:16 AM
TheCSSPaintingAPIenablesdynamicimagegenerationinCSSusingJavaScript.1.DeveloperscreateaPaintWorkletclasswithapaint()method.2.TheyregisteritviaregisterPaint().3.ThecustompaintfunctionisthenusedinCSSpropertieslikebackground-image.Thisallowsfordynamicvis
How to create responsive images using CSS?
Jul 15, 2025 am 01:10 AM
To create responsive images using CSS, it can be mainly achieved through the following methods: 1. Use max-width:100% and height:auto to allow the image to adapt to the container width while maintaining the proportion; 2. Use HTML's srcset and sizes attributes to intelligently load the image sources adapted to different screens; 3. Use object-fit and object-position to control image cropping and focus display. Together, these methods ensure that the images are presented clearly and beautifully on different devices.
What are common CSS browser inconsistencies?
Jul 26, 2025 am 07:04 AM
Different browsers have differences in CSS parsing, resulting in inconsistent display effects, mainly including the default style difference, box model calculation method, Flexbox and Grid layout support level, and inconsistent behavior of certain CSS attributes. 1. The default style processing is inconsistent. The solution is to use CSSReset or Normalize.css to unify the initial style; 2. The box model calculation method of the old version of IE is different. It is recommended to use box-sizing:border-box in a unified manner; 3. Flexbox and Grid perform differently in edge cases or in old versions. More tests and use Autoprefixer; 4. Some CSS attribute behaviors are inconsistent. CanIuse must be consulted and downgraded.
