"Animations can be one of the most joyful parts of building interfaces, but without structure, they can also become one of the biggest sources of frustration. By consolidating and standardizing keyframes, you take something that is usually messy and hard to manage and turn it into a clear, predictable system. Picture this: you join a new project, dive into the codebase, and within the first few hours, you discover something frustratingly familiar. Scattered throughout the stylesheets, you find multiple @keyframes definitions for the same basic animations. Three different fade-in effects, two or three slide variations, a handful of zoom animations, and at least two different spin animations because, well, why not?"
"@keyframes pulse { from { scale: 1; } to { scale: 1.1; } } @keyframes bigger-pulse { 0%, 20%, 100% { scale: 1; } 10%, 40% { scale: 1.2; } } If this scenario sounds familiar, you're not alone. In my experience across various projects, one of the most consistent quick wins I can deliver is consolidating and standardizing keyframes. It's become such a reliable pattern that I now look forward to this cleanup as one of my first tasks on any new codebase."
Duplicate CSS @keyframes definitions frequently accumulate across a codebase, producing redundant fades, slides, zooms, and spins. Component-based development and parallel work cause developers to recreate simple animations instead of reusing existing ones. Consolidating and standardizing keyframes reduces wasted development time, eases onboarding, and improves consistency across the UI. Establishing a central animation library, naming conventions, shared timing and easing tokens, documentation, and linting or tooling prevents future duplication. A migration strategy can replace scattered keyframes incrementally. A predictable animation system simplifies maintenance, increases reusability, and improves overall interface quality.
Read at Smashing Magazine
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