Blocking animations?

[meloukhia]

Animations and flashing things (including animated user icons and mood icons) basically break my brain and they keep showing up on my reading list, much to my dismay. I'm wonder if it's possible to add an option to the user settings to block all animations on the site (in my innocence about web development, I have no idea how difficult this would be)? I know this is an accessibility need for other people as well. 

Comments

[hope]

NoScript won't stop animated gifs, though, which are definitely just as much a problem as any other flashing thing created by flash/javascript.

In terms of an immediate user-side fix, if you're using Firefox you can tweak some settings to stop animations from playing: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_Tips_:_Animated_Images

There's also css "solution" to hide all gifs:

img[src*="gif"] { display: none !important; } 

You could add that to your journal style's stylesheet, and so long as you were viewing the page in your style, all gifs would be removed.

Of course, gifs aren't only used for animation, so it will likely remove lots of already-static graphics as well. Because of this, and the propensity for many site graphics (logos, icons, etc) to be gifs, I doubt it could be used as a site-wide solution :/

[codeman38]

The one thing that has prevented me from switching to Chrome, despite liking its engine better than Firefox, is that there's no built-in ability to disable animated GIFs.

(Yes, I know there are extensions that do that-- but they're very kludgy and don't always work.)

[meloukhia]

Right, and extensions sidestep the issue that some people access the site from public computers and cannot install extensions/plugins or change browser settings. I don't even know if what I am asking is possible but I figured it was worth a shot to bring it up.

The fix hope suggests is the closest, but I suspect it will also, er, break some site functionality in the process, which is not so happymaking!

[jadelennox]

Turning off animated gifs won't disable any site functionality, and that first link is animations only. I wish Firefox didn't obscure the accessibility settings as much as they do; there's no reasons to obfuscate them like that.

[meloukhia]

Yeah, if I used Firefox, I'd definitely be using that setting! Unfortunately I'm on Chrome, which, as codeman38 points out, oddly doesn't have an option for turning off animations. I haven't had any success with plugins, either (this has been an ongoing source of frustration).

[jadelennox]

One of the things I love about opera is how easy turning off animations site-wide is for even non-techy users. om nom nom site prefs.

[trouble]

Can you talk more about Opera? A friend of mine uses it, too.

[jadelennox]

I have very mixed feelings about Opera; in some cases I need Opera for accessibility, and in others Firefox. Most of the time I have both browsers open all the time.

Opera has put an enormous amount of effort into making site-specific settings readily available to the user: cookies, JavaScript, animated icons, pop-ups, frames, etc. There are a huge number of basic browser features that you can get to with a single keystroke. The browser comes with a bunch of accessibility styles for a variety of needs (e.g. high contrast, high zoom, etc.) and they are user-configurable if you know CSS.

BUT.

Firefox has that excellent user community which has been building extensions for years, so we get things like mouseless browsing and the UIUC accessibility extension. Those add-ons just don't exist for Opera. So I use both.

[trouble]

Awesome. Thank you!

[meloukhia]

I really do dream of an ideal browser that combines all of my accessibility needs with the perfect user interface...