How to make HTML text flashing?

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How to make HTML text flashing?

irock

8:41 am on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

I tried <BLINK> tags with no success on IE6. Netscape 7 seem to work fine though. Does anyone know how to make this possible?

Thanks!

hartlandcat

9:36 am on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

<blink> has never been supported in IE, and most likely never will. Traditionally, IE supported <marquee> but not <blink>, but Netscape supported <blink> but not <marquee>. Support for <marquee> was added fairly recently (most likely at version 6.0) because many top Chinese websites use it excessively, and are thus unreadable without it. Opera has never supported either.

While it is possible to get IE to blink text using JavaScript, blinking text (and marquees) are generally deemed anoying. Many Netscape/Mozilla users have both switched off.

MonkeeSage

9:37 am on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

You can do it with some JavaScript magic...

 <script type="text/javascript">
 <!--
 var b_timer = null; // blink timer
 var b_on = true; // blink state
 var blnkrs = null; // array of spans
 
 function blink() {
  var tmp = document.getElementsByTagName("span");
  if (tmp) {
  blnkrs = new Array();
  var b_count = 0;
  for (var i = 0; i < tmp.length; ++i) {
  if (tmp[i].className == "blink") {
   blnkrs[b_count] = tmp[i];
   ++b_count;
  }
  }
  // time in m.secs between blinks
  // 500 = 1/2 second
  blinkTimer(500);
  }
 }
 
 function blinkTimer(ival) {
  if (b_timer) {
  window.clearTimeout(b_timer);
  b_timer = null;
  }
  blinkIt();
  b_timer = window.setTimeout('blinkTimer(' + ival + ')', ival);
 }
 
 function blinkIt() {
  for (var i = 0; i < blnkrs.length; ++i) {
  if (b_on == true) {
  blnkrs[i].style.visibility = "hidden";
  }
  else {
  blnkrs[i].style.visibility = "visible";
  }
  }
  b_on =!b_on;
 }
 //-->
 </script>

A tad of CSS, e.g.,...

<style type="text/css">
.blink {
 font-size: 15px;
 color: red;
 display: inline;
}
</style>

And a bit of mark-up...

...
<body onload="blink();">
...
This is a test of the <span class="blink">blinking text</span> thingy...which <span class="blink">blinks</span> (in theory)...
...

But just a warning, most people don't like alot of blinking stuff, so you probably should not over-use the effect.

Jordan

tigger

9:43 am on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

>>But just a warning, most people don't like alot of blinking stuff, so you probably should not over-use the effect

100% agree, blinking text is the biggest turn of for me other than sound

MonkeeSage

9:51 am on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

tigger:

Same here. I made the above functions based off some I made playing around with writing chromes for Mozilla / Firebird, so I could have a custom picture as a cursor in an editable textarea and have it blink. I also have a version that makes a button blink x times and then disappear after it is clicked. But just blinking text grates on my eyes, especially if there is alot of it everywhere and it's high-contrast, that's the worst. ;)

Jordan

RonPK

10:14 am on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

There's a CSS attribute for this too:

text-decoration: blink

AFAIK, only Mozilla and Opera support it.

gph

7:13 pm on Sep 7, 2003 (gmt 0)

b_on =!b_on;

I didn't know that was possible, thanks MonkeeSage

Nick_W

7:18 am on Sep 8, 2003 (gmt 0)

Have a look at this:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Nick

MonkeeSage

9:35 am on Sep 8, 2003 (gmt 0)

b_on =!b_on;

I didn't know that was possible, thanks MonkeeSage

Yup...in that context "!" is "opposite" instead of the usual "not". Only works with booleans. :)

Jordan

gph

10:21 pm on Sep 8, 2003 (gmt 0)

I used to think this was as condensed as it gets

b_on = b_on ? 0 : 1;

Learn something new every day :)

RonPK

5:51 am on Sep 9, 2003 (gmt 0)

Mine is shorter:

b_on ^= 1;

dougmcc1

8:44 pm on Sep 9, 2003 (gmt 0)

b_on =!b_on;

I didn't know that was possible

Yup...in that context "!" is "opposite" instead of the usual "not". Only works with booleans. :)

I used to think this was as condensed as it gets
b_on = b_on? 0 : 1;

Mine is shorter:
b_on ^= 1;

lol. Only on WebmasterWorld.

gph

2:15 am on Sep 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Nice one Ron

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