7 ms·

I recently removed all animations from my android and the zero latency blows me away, it's like it got instantly way faster. Wish i could do that for the web M

I recently removed all animations from my android and the zero latency blows me away, it's like it got instantly way faster. Wish i could do that for the web Most of the sins of the modern web can be easily undone

unicornporn 6y ago
Just disabled, how lovely!
deergomoo 6y ago
> Wish i could do that for the web I would imagine something like `* { transition: none !important; animation: none !important; }` would get you pretty far right?
- userbinator 6y ago
  ...in a browser that supports user stylesheets, which unfortunately means only Firefox and IE, by default. It's possible to work around that with extensions, however.
  - amilios 6y ago
    Chrome has tons of extensions that do this, letting you do it on a per-site basis too. I use one to enforce a "dark mode" on HN actually!
jsmith99 6y ago
For the web, if you have the right accessibility settings in your operating system or browser, then the prefers-reduced-motion media query should tell sites not to show you animations. Not many developers explicitly add support for this, but it's included in eg bootstrap. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-reduced-motion https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
Keyframe 6y ago
Thanks for the tip. Night and day difference!
FiddlerClamp 6y ago
Careful, some apps seem to rely on those animations. Uber, I've found, has issues displaying the location of the vehicle if I set them all to 0.0. No problem if I set them to 0.5.
- 88840-8855 6y ago
  that sounds like a terrible design decision of the app.
  - m463 6y ago
    maybe it prevents the driver from breaking the speed limit :)
satysin 6y ago
Oh how I wish I could do this on macOS. Yes there is a "reduce motion" setting but there is no remove motion setting and a whole bunch of animations remain most notably minimize/maximize of windows (I can at least change from the default Genie effect to Scale which is faster), opening an application it still "zooms" into the screen, etc. I would happily pay for a third party app to nuke every single damn animation if I could but Apple make it impossible (or at least that is what is claimed). And of course this doesn't even touch on how laggy resizing many applications on macOS is (yes even on the shiny new M1 models). The Microsoft Office suite, Chrome and a whole bunch of other applications are horrible when resizing. It isn't often an issue with Apple's applications for what that's worth.
- anthk 6y ago
  Open a Terminal. Then, copy and paste these contents: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lexrus/081fa687d8b2475d3367/raw/24fb6e40beb01d9d27c22ecbeaa541599095f254/disable_all_animation.sh https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lexrus/081fa687d8b2475d33... Also, Tinker Tool in OSX did that, IDK it it's still working. https://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/details.html https://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/details.html
  - satysin 6y ago
    Oh I know every single tweak out there, sadly many no longer work in Big Sur. But even before that you have not been able to fully disable every animation in macOS for as long as I can remember.
    - anthk 6y ago
      Try Tinker tool, it may be close.
- Dort 6y ago
  Windows XP and perhaps newer versions of Windows included a setting to only redraw a window after the user has finished moving/resizing. You would instead see an outline of the new window position/size. The same applied to (un)minimizing. I don’t know about such a setting in MacOS.
seabird 6y ago
What has happened to desktop UIs since the 90s has been tragic. We've made some minor specific advances in the last 20 years, but dropped the ball on some really fundamental concepts. It hurts whenever I have to slog through a shitload of monochromatic nondescript icons with no tooltips until I finally find what I need five minutes later. Mobile phones are slathered in useless animations that make using them feel like molasses, and this is starting to show up in desktop software too. Finding software that has an information density level appropriate for somebody over the age of 12 is becoming pretty hard. Most of this could be easily undone, but it won't be. Rest assured that whatever is going to cause you the most pain is what will happen.
- dsfbjornjaja 6y ago
  It’s not unlike Hollywood cinema: glitz and glam. Truth is, we had knobs and switches, then typewriters which naturally transition to command line, then we had window managers which are like a desk(top) covered in papers. Then we had... well that’s all we have. I guess the next thing is AR/VR and 3D UIs but until then... A mobile phone or tablet UI I would say is like a spiral bound pocket notebook, as compared to the proper desktop metaphor of full laptop/desktop computers. It’s like trying to reinvent the book. It _can_ be enhanced, but most of the time it doesn’t change the overall reading experience.
  - gonzo41 6y ago
    Your talk about VR is akin to popup books. It won't be the panacea that people think. Mac Command+Space search (Spotlight?) is about as good as it gets for driving a ui these days.
- sedatk 6y ago
  Animations on mobile are not always useless. They act as a feedback mechanism on a medium like touch screen where there is none otherwise. They can also work to compensate for delays. The perception of delay can be reduced by showing an animation while doing another task in the background.
  - 6y ago
joshxyz 6y ago
> I recently removed all animations from my android and the zero latency blows me away Jesus fucking christ, just discovered this now thanks to your comment, it does make a huge difference!
Izkata 6y ago
"Battery Saver" mode also automatically disables some of the animations, so it would be interesting to see if you got a boost from removing the animations without enabling Battery Saver.
dorkwood 6y ago
If your OS has a "reduce motion" option (I know windows and mac do), many websites are starting to obey this as an accessibility requirement. I actually noticed this when I accidentally disabled animations on a few websites I visit by disabling them at the OS level. Unfortunately the website animations actually made things easier to use, so I had to turn the painful OS animations back on to get the website animations back.
grawprog 6y ago
Thanks for this post. Just turned off all animations on my android phone and you weren't kidding, the difference is pretty incredible. For anyone who doesn't know, the setting is in developer options on android 9 at least. There's several animation scale settings, they can be increased, decreased or turned off. Turning them all off removed the animations.

unicornporn 6y ago

Just disabled, how lovely!

deergomoo 6y ago

> Wish i could do that for the web I would imagine something like `* { transition: none !important; animation: none !important; }` would get you pretty far right?

userbinator 6y ago
...in a browser that supports user stylesheets, which unfortunately means only Firefox and IE, by default. It's possible to work around that with extensions, however.
- amilios 6y ago
  Chrome has tons of extensions that do this, letting you do it on a per-site basis too. I use one to enforce a "dark mode" on HN actually!

jsmith99 6y ago

For the web, if you have the right accessibility settings in your operating system or browser, then the prefers-reduced-motion media query should tell sites not to show you animations. Not many developers explicitly add support for this, but it's included in eg bootstrap. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-reduced-motion https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...

Keyframe 6y ago

Thanks for the tip. Night and day difference!

FiddlerClamp 6y ago

Careful, some apps seem to rely on those animations. Uber, I've found, has issues displaying the location of the vehicle if I set them all to 0.0. No problem if I set them to 0.5.

88840-8855 6y ago
that sounds like a terrible design decision of the app.
- m463 6y ago
  maybe it prevents the driver from breaking the speed limit :)

satysin 6y ago

Oh how I wish I could do this on macOS. Yes there is a "reduce motion" setting but there is no remove motion setting and a whole bunch of animations remain most notably minimize/maximize of windows (I can at least change from the default Genie effect to Scale which is faster), opening an application it still "zooms" into the screen, etc. I would happily pay for a third party app to nuke every single damn animation if I could but Apple make it impossible (or at least that is what is claimed). And of course this doesn't even touch on how laggy resizing many applications on macOS is (yes even on the shiny new M1 models). The Microsoft Office suite, Chrome and a whole bunch of other applications are horrible when resizing. It isn't often an issue with Apple's applications for what that's worth.

anthk 6y ago
Open a Terminal. Then, copy and paste these contents: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lexrus/081fa687d8b2475d3367/raw/24fb6e40beb01d9d27c22ecbeaa541599095f254/disable_all_animation.sh https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lexrus/081fa687d8b2475d33... Also, Tinker Tool in OSX did that, IDK it it's still working. https://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/details.html https://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/details.html
- satysin 6y ago
  Oh I know every single tweak out there, sadly many no longer work in Big Sur. But even before that you have not been able to fully disable every animation in macOS for as long as I can remember.
  - anthk 6y ago
    Try Tinker tool, it may be close.
Dort 6y ago
Windows XP and perhaps newer versions of Windows included a setting to only redraw a window after the user has finished moving/resizing. You would instead see an outline of the new window position/size. The same applied to (un)minimizing. I don’t know about such a setting in MacOS.

seabird 6y ago

What has happened to desktop UIs since the 90s has been tragic. We've made some minor specific advances in the last 20 years, but dropped the ball on some really fundamental concepts. It hurts whenever I have to slog through a shitload of monochromatic nondescript icons with no tooltips until I finally find what I need five minutes later. Mobile phones are slathered in useless animations that make using them feel like molasses, and this is starting to show up in desktop software too. Finding software that has an information density level appropriate for somebody over the age of 12 is becoming pretty hard. Most of this could be easily undone, but it won't be. Rest assured that whatever is going to cause you the most pain is what will happen.

dsfbjornjaja 6y ago
It’s not unlike Hollywood cinema: glitz and glam. Truth is, we had knobs and switches, then typewriters which naturally transition to command line, then we had window managers which are like a desk(top) covered in papers. Then we had... well that’s all we have. I guess the next thing is AR/VR and 3D UIs but until then... A mobile phone or tablet UI I would say is like a spiral bound pocket notebook, as compared to the proper desktop metaphor of full laptop/desktop computers. It’s like trying to reinvent the book. It _can_ be enhanced, but most of the time it doesn’t change the overall reading experience.
- gonzo41 6y ago
  Your talk about VR is akin to popup books. It won't be the panacea that people think. Mac Command+Space search (Spotlight?) is about as good as it gets for driving a ui these days.
sedatk 6y ago
Animations on mobile are not always useless. They act as a feedback mechanism on a medium like touch screen where there is none otherwise. They can also work to compensate for delays. The perception of delay can be reduced by showing an animation while doing another task in the background.
- 6y ago

joshxyz 6y ago

> I recently removed all animations from my android and the zero latency blows me away Jesus fucking christ, just discovered this now thanks to your comment, it does make a huge difference!

Izkata 6y ago

"Battery Saver" mode also automatically disables some of the animations, so it would be interesting to see if you got a boost from removing the animations without enabling Battery Saver.

dorkwood 6y ago

If your OS has a "reduce motion" option (I know windows and mac do), many websites are starting to obey this as an accessibility requirement. I actually noticed this when I accidentally disabled animations on a few websites I visit by disabling them at the OS level. Unfortunately the website animations actually made things easier to use, so I had to turn the painful OS animations back on to get the website animations back.

grawprog 6y ago

Thanks for this post. Just turned off all animations on my android phone and you weren't kidding, the difference is pretty incredible. For anyone who doesn't know, the setting is in developer options on android 9 at least. There's several animation scale settings, they can be increased, decreased or turned off. Turning them all off removed the animations.