
WebKit: 3D Transforms - arthurk
http://webkit.org/blog/386/3d-transforms/
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cpr
This is great stuff--bringing OS X's Core Animation technology to web apps.

Apple is betting both on the desktop and on the (open standards) web, and
letting both compete freely.

Microsoft seems to want to cripple IE to prevent web apps from overtaking the
desktop (or else they've got some other wierd motivation that cripples its
forward motion in areas like CSS standards, 2d/3d canvas, Javascript
features/performance; or perhaps they're hoping to make their proprietary
Silverlight the chosen method for delivering desktop-like apps.)

(Sorry, don't mean to be a fanboi--lots to criticize about Apple's overall
behavior, but at least in this area they seem to be thinking right.)

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mcav
Now we must hope that Microsoft's market share won't force these new features
to remain niche. As long as IE retains a lot of market share while not
including these new features, the web can only go forward so far.

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herf
Compared to authoring 3-D any other way, turning parts of the DOM to 3-D is
just smart. Built-in textures, text, it's really 5x easier to author this than
anything before it.

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GeneralMaximus
This will only be interesting if Mozilla and Opera pick it up (which _might_
force MS to pick it up, but nobody can bet on that happening).

I don't buy the cloud computing hype, but following browser technology is
always fun. Oh, and it's WebKit, so free upvote.

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riklomas
Does anyone else worry that these animations are going to get seriously
misused? I know they look pretty cool, but I can definitely see them becoming
the post-Web-2.0 blink and marquee tags

Also, shouldn't animation be part of Javascript rather than CSS as it's more
to do with behaviour rather than presentation?

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modeless
I'd argue that most simple UI animations are in fact presentational, not
behavioral.

One of the nice things about defining animations declaratively in CSS instead
of procedurally in Javascript is that browsers will have control over the
implementation. Your browser could easily have a "no animations" mode, or
selectively disable certain animation types. Browsers can implement animations
much more efficiently if they don't have to call Javascript every frame, and
they can also separate animation from whatever else the page is doing;
animations could be slowed or stopped in background tabs or low-battery
situations while the page's Javascript continues running.

~~~
vidarh
Not to mention that it'll do wonders for keeping pages accessible where we'd
otherwise risk people making them a mess of javascript...

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zzzmarcus
Fwiw the demo runs great on the iPhone 3GS. Looks like it's at least running
at 15fps.

~~~
buymorechuck
Here's an older CoverFlow iPhone demo: [http://css-
vfx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/examples/zflow_snow....](http://css-
vfx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/examples/zflow_snow.html)

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dan_the_welder
Sweet, animated d-20's.

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TweedHeads
Oooh, the beautiful web.

I've seen it, and it is beautiful!

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est
So, Webkit reinvents DirectAnimation and DXImageTransform?

