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Some killjoys have removed the blink tag from Firefox
- chromaton 13y agoI always thought that <blink> should be implemented by alternating between a high and low intensity color. That way it's not invisible 30% of the time when you're reading it. I suspect if it had been done this way, it would have been seen as far less offensive.
- joshuahedlund 13y agoI don't care what you say, there is no rhyme or reason for browsers to keep dropping <blink> support while all of them continue to support <marquee> (though it's probably just a matter of time?)
- sigzero 13y agoThank goodness!
- lnanek2 13y agoMakes sense there would be a MILSPEC for blinking but avoiding seizures. If you have an LCD that can only show blank or numbers, the only visual way it has to warn you about something, like a number being too high, is to blink.
- wil421 13y agoWhat about the view counter on my Geocity site? I would look at it everyday to see if someone happened to stumble on my site.
- dsschnau 13y agoI don't get it - can't we just implement the same effect in JS if we need blink that badly?
- orestmayski 13y agoDon't see how the blink tag would be much use though..
- teeja 13y agopfft. Javascript timers are more accurate anyway. Nyah nyah Mozilla.
- ivank 13y agoYou can put jwz's blink in your browser profile's userContent.css to make it work on all websites: @keyframes blink { 0% { opacity:1; } 75% { opacity:1; } 76% { opacity:0; } 100% { opacity:0; }} blink { text-decoration: inherit; animation: blink 0.75s ease-in infinite alternate; } (Though it will work a little differently than the native <blink>, as the CSS makes non-text elements blink as well.)
- AaronFriel 13y agoThank god we can finally blink non-text elements. The glorious HTML5/CSS3 future is upon is.
- AsymetricCom 13y agoTechnically, this isn't the right solution, but I appreciate the suggestion. Firefox should honor HTML standard and add it back, and add an option in about::config or some other dialog and disable it there if they think it should be disabled by default.
- ivank 13y agoIt's not in any HTML standard, but strangely there is a joke DTD on w3.org with BLINK: http://www.w3.org/Style/HTML40-plus-blink.dtd http://www.w3.org/Style/HTML40-plus-blink.dtd
- dasmoth 13y agoOn the other hand, "text-decoration: blink" (which has also been killed in Firefox) is standard CSS (although the standard does go on to kind-of suggest not implementing it...) http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/text.html#lining-striking-props http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/text.html#lining-striking-props
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- beggi 13y agoI suggest you read this :) http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat
- hobbes78 13y agoMandatory link: "The Origins of the <Blink> Tag" http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag It's surprisingly interesting and written by the person with the original idea!
- speeder 13y agoDrunk coders, awesome. Also I wonder who leaked, or found out, the tag first.
- talles 13y agoHaha amazing, who knew blink had such a story behind it... Ty for the link
- ghshephard 13y agoSmall correction, St. James Infirmary was on Moffett Blvd, how I loved that place before it burned down.
- mindcrime 13y agoKilljoys? Nay, bloody sodding wankers, the lot of them! Removing the <blink> tag is about as heart-warming an event as taking Old Yeller out back and putting a bullet through his brain. This is a travesty, pure and simple.
- krapp 13y agofirst they came for the <blink> tag...
- mindcrime 13y agoRight! What's next, the <marquee> tag?!?!?? Do these people known no mercy!?!
- krapp 13y agoI don't want to live in that world.
- zalambar 13y agoDon't worry, we can replace that with CSS too: http://html5advent2011.digitpaint.nl/14/ http://html5advent2011.digitpaint.nl/14/
- skeletonjelly 13y agomarquee's already gone in FF isn't it?
- msvan 13y agoSo now the blink tag will appear in some browsers but not in others? Fear not, the blink tag lives on. If not in Firefox, then in the irony.
- gpvos 13y agoFirefox was the last browser that still supported it.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoMy favorite use of <BLINK> http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/login.html http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/login.html
- mjy78 13y agoI guess safari has already removed support for this tag? I get no blinking cursor on this page :o(
- pyrocat 13y agoSomeone give them a fucking medal.
- bencollier49 13y agoWhy? Did they just win a f--king contest? I didn't know they ran those, it ought to be an Olympic sport, eh?
- voltagex_ 13y agoThe best use of this I've seen was someone wrapping the entire Wikipedia article on the blink tag, in the blink tag.
- yareally 13y agoNow, the only "valid use of the blink tag"[1] will work again. [1] http://blink.tylian.net/ http://blink.tylian.net/
- nhebb 13y agoBlink is a visual annoyance, but it's nothing compared to the retina bleaching caused by jwz's site.
- libria 13y agoThere's a normalizing scriptlet bookmark I got from here on HN: javascript:(function(){function R(w){try{var d=w.document,j,i,t,T,N,b,r=1,C;for(j=0;t=["object","embed","applet","iframe"][j];++j){T=d.getElementsByTagName(t);for(i=T.length-1;(i+1)&&(N=T[i]);--i)if(j!=3||!R((C=N.contentWindow)?C:N.contentDocument.defaultView)){b=d.createElement("div");b.style.width=N.width; b.style.height=N.height;b.innerHTML="<del>"+(j==3?"third-party "+t:t)+"</del>";N.parentNode.replaceChild(b,N);}}}catch(E){r=0}return r}R(self);var i,x;for(i=0;x=frames[i];++i)R(x)})(); javascript:(function(){var newSS, styles='* { background: white ! important; color: black !important; text-shadow: none !important } :link, :link * { color: #0000EE !important } :visited, :visited * { color: #551A8B !important }'; if(document.createStyleSheet) { document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'"); } else { newSS=document.createElement('link'); newSS.rel='stylesheet'; newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles); document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS); } })(); javascript:(function(){var d=document; function K(N,w) { var nn = d.createElement(w), C = N.childNodes, i; for(i=C.length-1;i>=0;--i) nn.insertBefore(C[i],nn.childNodes[0]); N.parentNode.replaceChild(nn,N); } function Z(t,w) { var T = document.getElementsByTagName(t), j; for (j=T.length-1;j>=0;--j) K(T[j],w); } Z("blink", "span"); Z("marquee", "div"); })(); javascript:(function(){var H=["mouseover","mouseout","unload","resize"],o=window.opera; if(document.addEventListener/*MOZ*/&&!o) for(j in H)document.addEventListener(H[j],function(e){e.stopPropagation();},true); else if(window.captureEvents/*NS4*/&&!o) { document.captureEvents(-1/*ALL*/);for(j in H)window["on"+H[j]]=null;} else/*IE*/ {function R(N){var i,x;for(j in H)if(N["on"+H[j]]/*NOT TEXTNODE*/)N["on"+H[j]]=null;for(i=0;x=N.childNodes[i];++i)R(x);}R(document);}})(); javascript:(function() { var c, tID, iID; tID = setTimeout(function(){}, 0); for (c=1; c<1000 && c<=tID; ++c) clearTimeout(tID - c); iID = setInterval(function(){},1000); for (c=0; c<1000 && c<=iID; ++c) clearInterval(iID - c); })();(function(){ var imgs = document.getElementsByTagName('img'); for(var i=0; i < imgs.length; i++) { imgs[i].style.visibility='hidden';}})(); Wish I could credit the source.
- IvyMike 13y agoOnce upon a time, green-on-black was the best thing available, and to programmers my and jwz's age, it was THE FUTURE. But to this generation, it's denigrated as "retina bleach".
- brudgers 13y agoThis isn't progress. It's just change. Blink never hurt anyone.
- pjscott 13y agoHave you forgotten how annoying the web used to be?
- brudgers 13y agoThe original form of my comment was: (...) (...) (But for the sake of ideology.) (...) As demonstrated by the argument that blink deserves elimination because of the past, the big rationale is punishment - premised upon anthropomorphizing an HTML tag. What I remember about the days of blink is fucking amazing the web was. The driving ideal was connecting everything to everything else - not creating gated communities of cul-de-sacs. What was far more annoying than blink was auto-playing music. Now in fairness, if the web has ceased to be a source of annoyance since, I must not have noticed. Was there a memo?
- hnha 13y agocompared to today's web (when used without an ad-blocker)? there are huge moving, sliding, wiggling, popping animations everywhere.
- derleth 13y agoBlink can cause epileptic seizures.
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoif you read the comments thread on jwz's site there's a discussion that concludes that blink doesn't blink fast enough to cause seizures- There's specific MIL specs they cite.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- planckscnst 13y agoSomeone collapsed the waveform! http://www.schrodingerscatis.com/ http://www.schrodingerscatis.com/
- frozenport 13y agoDoes anybody have the firefox devs discussion on this matter. Blink was my favorite indigo child of tags. When clients wanted more attention to a div i would blink it, and they would quickly realize the error of their ways.
- jmadsen 13y agoReally? Mine always thought it looked great
- skeletonjelly 13y agoDiscussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6170392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6170392
- brudgers 13y agoThe author of the article is JWZ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jwz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jwz And there's a history: https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=msg/comp.infosystems.www.servers.misc/IB7h_NwnEyo/00ry61QmDGIJ#!msg/comp.infosystems.www.servers.misc/IB7h_NwnEyo/00ry61QmDGIJ https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=msg/comp... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213625 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213625
- skeletonjelly 13y agoThanks! I didn't see anything about that on his site. That makes it a tad more personal
- thezilch 13y agoWHAT'S NEXT?!?? REMOVING... <font face="comic sans ms">???</font> ???
- ygra 13y agoWhich has been standardised for ages, but deprecated for a while.
- wymy 13y ago> <blink> support should be dropped for one release out of every four. Thanks for the laugh.
- Terretta 13y agoThing is, back in the day, blink did have its uses... <blink><font color="red">"If you click continue, your database will be irretrievably deleted, your children shipped off to coal mines, and your tea served lukewarm."</font></blink> Even corporate intranets loved it: http://forums.asp.net/post/433145.aspx http://forums.asp.net/post/433145.aspx It worked!
- jes5199 13y agoit's actually hard to read blinking text - it's missing from the screen half the time!
- kh_hk 13y agoIt's actually blinking just 1/4 of the time
- kenbellows 13y agoIt should be off only 1/4 of the time, but IIRC it was often not implemented correctly, and it would sometimes be 2-on,2-off instead of 3-on,1-off.
- bradgessler 13y agoFear not! I brought blink back at http://terribleideas.neocities.org/ http://terribleideas.neocities.org/ (and a bunch of other really terrible tags, like <shudder/>).
- shirro 13y agoNow we need a new semantic tag to indicate content will be annoying that we can style with css however we like. I propose we reuse the blink tag for that purpose. <blink>The new iphone is rumoured to...</blink> <blink>Version 0.1.2 of xyzscript has just been released...</blink>
- tingley 13y agoI fixed blink in Mozilla twice (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89065 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89065) in the old days, back when I was running around looking for things to fix. The first time it broke was a result of Dave Hyatt's rewrite of the style system; I always suspected he had broken it on purpose. The second time seemed like it was just a mistake. Anyways, a sad day.
- emhart 13y agoI'd actually love to hear more about your fixes, your suspicions and your feelings about blink's removal. The anthropology of the internet is fascinating to me and it sounds like you would have a pretty unique perspective on this. Either here or a blog or whatever, I'd love to know more.
- tingley 13y agoThere's not a lot to say. I didn't have any huge role in the project, although the experience working on it was hugely influential in the way I thought about programming. Maybe I'll write it up some day. As for Hyatt, it just seemed like something he would do as a joke. Blink was a ridiculous feature, but it was a standard, which was a wedge that Mozilla leaned on heavily in those days.
- rangibaby 13y agoAnd the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days. from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10
- derleth 13y agoEpileptics don't need to use the Web anyway. /s
- positr0n 13y agoI learned something interesting from a comment on the post: "I was a neuro tech for a long time, doing tests for epilepsy. A 1Hz blink can trigger a seizure, but only in a vanishingly small number of epileptics and only if it's sustained - photosensitive epileptics (far from all epileptics) usually need at least 8-10Hz strobing before epileptic activity rises. The common range is ~12-16. All this being said, have a 3:1 duty cycle is better UX anyway - the blink off works as the attention-grabbing highlight, and the longer duration on allows what's highlighted to be more easily read." Looks like you don't need to worry :-D
- Natsu 13y agoSomeone needs to hold a funeral for it. One of those funerals where people throw a party.
- taude 13y agoI'd honestly take blinking text over overt Flash ads any day...
- kudu 13y agoI think that completely killing the blink tag is a bit extreme given that its core implementation could simply have been replaced by a CSS polyfill.
- dutchbrit 13y agohttps://github.com/samgranger/blink.js https://github.com/samgranger/blink.js User agent check still needs to be removed and replaced with something better
- david927 13y agoIf you have a problem and you think that the blink tag is the solution, now you have two problems.
- RobK_ 13y agoMy work around that operates more like the original (i.e. does not cause img's to flash), built with AngularJS - https://github.com/RobK/angular-blink https://github.com/RobK/angular-blink
- andr 13y agoPut this in your CSS: blink { animation: fade-in-out 1s steps(1,end) infinite alternate; }
- exDM69 13y agoNot sure if he's joking or not. In other circumstances I would immediately take it as a joking but this guy has been seriously complaining about removing crappy features that should have been killed decades ago: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/06/i-have-ported-xscreensaver-to-the-iphone/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/06/i-have-ported-xscreensaver-t... In the above he was complaining about the removal of glBegin/glEnd from OpenGL ES (and depracating it in OpenGL 3.0+). It was a convenience feature that might have made sense back in 1992 when OpenGL was introduced but with the advent of consumer graphics hardware in the late 90's, glBegin/glEnd was essentially the reason for a 100x performance drop. (if you're wondering whether I'm joking or not: yes I am, except for the 100x perf drop)
- workbench 13y agoOne less reason to use Firefox
- antihero 13y agoSo I for science I tried applying "shudder linear 0.1s 0s infinite" to the <body> tag. It may be because I'm hungover but I came very close to throwing up.
- aj700 13y agosince "the killjoys" (actually quite accurate in this case) AT WIKIPEDIA won't let me put the words 'LUDICROUS SPEED' in blink tags or capitals on the Spaceballs article, what's the point in having it anyway?
- aspinei 13y agoAnd the obligatory t-shirt to express my feelings about this http://www.cafepress.com/hackernewsswag/10307694 http://www.cafepress.com/hackernewsswag/10307694