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

[aithine]

That's not the sort of thing that's the site's responsibility, IMO, it's the user's. :) You should install something like NoScript.

[jadelennox]

what's your browser? you should be able to turn them off on a per-site or all-Internet basis using browser settings.

[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 :/

[jadelennox]

If you override everyone's mood themes with a theme of your own on your reading page, you can pick a non-animated one.

http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options

[noracharles]

I've picked the icons I tolerate the best for people on my reading list and set them to always display in my style.

This entry explains how. I'm sorry it's a mess from all the edits, I don't understand CSS enough myself to write a new coherent explanation incorporating the various refinements from the comments.

[rtydmartel]

This is more of a temporary fix until you find something more permanent, but, at least on Firefox and Internet Explorer (it doesn't appear to work with Chrome and Safari), if you press the "Esc" key on your keyboard all animated images in the page you're viewing freeze. It doesn't work for flashing text, though.

I hope that helps you at least for the moment?