Add Movement to Your HTML - Transition Property
Tags: css, property, examples
Published: 2018-04-10 08:59:47

---
title: Add Movement to Your HTML - Transition Property
published: true
description: A full explanation of this popular property which adds movement to elements.
tags: CSS, property, examples.
---

So, I've moved from text and color in web design to unique, bombshell, explosions... OK, not that much, but I've moved. CSS follow and support those changes and because of that, we have the **transition** option.

##About Transition

The transition property allows changing the CSS property values smoothly.
**It is necessary to define a property that will be changed and the duration of the effect.**

     button{
        transition: background 1s;
        -webkit-transition: background 1s; /* Safari */
     }

These two values can be defined with the universal property `transition` or with individual properties `transition-property` and `transition-duration`.

Some of the `transition-property` values I can remember at the moment are:
* width,
* height,
* color,
* background (color, image, position) ,
* transform (in the next post),
* border (color, width),
* [position](https://kolosek.com/css-position-relative-vs-position-absolute/) (top, bottom, left, right ),
* text ([size](https://kolosek.com/css-relative-font-size/), weight, shadow, word-spacing),
* margin,
* padding,
* opacity,
* visibility,
* z-index,
* all.

If the value is defined with a property, defines a comma-separated list of CSS property names the transition effect is for. The **value all** is the default one and defines that all properties that can transition will transition. **In this case, all changed properties will have a transition with the same `duration` (and `delay` and `timing` if defined).**

The `transition-duration` property is very simple, it defines how much time a transition effect takes to complete, and its value can be defined in seconds (s) or milliseconds (ms).

##More Transition Options

Additional properties connected to transition are:
* `transition-delay`
* `transition-timing-function`

Very similar to the duration property, `transition-delay` is defined with seconds (s) or milliseconds (ms) and specifies when the transition effect will start. This property can be negative, unlike the duration property, and if that so it will begin part-way through its play cycle.

The `transition-timing-function` property is defined by the following functions:
* **ease** - slow start, fast middle, slow end,
* **linear** - constant speed,
* **ease-in** - slow start, fast end,
* **ease-out** - fast start, slow end,
* **ease-in-out** -  more pronounced acceleration/deceleration curves that ease,
* **cubic-bezier (n,n,n,n)** - you can write your own function defined with 4 coordinates ([cubic bezier functions](http://cubic-bezier.com/)).


       button{
         transition: background 1s ease-in-out 2s;
         -webkit-transition: background 1s ease-in-out 2s; /* Safari */
       }

**With the universal property `transition` you can define all four properties, just keep in mind that first time defined is always `transition-duration`.**

It's possible to make the multiple transitions set. To split different transitions use `,`.

       button{
         transition: background 1s ease-in-out 2s, width 2s linear;
         -webkit-transition: background 1s ease-in-out 2s, width 2s linear; /* Safari */
       }


##Triggering
The main thing to remember about the transition is that this property is defined before and it's going to happen only if it's triggered (if the property which is defined with transition-property is changed).

You can trigger CSS transitions directly with pseudo-classes like :hover, :focus and :active or through JavaScript by adding or removing classes.

##Conclusion
This property is widely supported so use it! If you need some inspiration, check out [this example](https://cssreference.io/transitions/).

This post is originally published on [Kolosek Blog](https://kolosek.com/css-transition/).