Gecko May Drop the Blink Tag

AmiMoJo writes "It looks like Mozilla are finally going to remove the much hated blink tag from the Gecko rendering engine that powers Firefox. Work to remove support for the tag, which was always non-standard and is not supported by the most popular HTML layout engines WebKit and Blink (Chrome, Safari, Opera, Android), is progressing and should show up in a future version of the browser." A comment attached to the discussion of this (not completed) move points out the odd possibility that Google's new Blink rendering engine may feature the blink tag via CSS animation, which would be "hilarious/awesome."

Comments

no problem

[iggymanz]

HTML5 allows blink functionality to be done via CSS3 animations, so they can never take the away from us!

Re:no problem

[AvitarX]

But It's appropriate for it to be in CSS, It's a style of display that has to syntax. I wish they'd remove bold and italic too.

How is Blink the most popular?

[thestudio_bob]

How is Blink one of the most popular HTML layout engines?

Is being used yet?

Re:How is Blink the most popular?

[guttentag]

How is Blink one of the most popular HTML layout engines?

I think what they meant is that people who have no concept of HTML layout have a tendency to overcompensate for this shortcoming by using the BLINK tag as a replacement for all other more-subtle and more-refined embellishments (B, I, U, P, BR, etc.), and they use it with such gusto that use of the tag indicates a subscription to the Blink "School" of layout theory ("more blink equals more better" and so forth) which is treated as a layout engine unto itself, however crude it may be. Many adherents of the Blink School evolved to the Flash school during the AOLic period, but as Blink is so much simpler to implement, it serves as a common denominator and suggests that these simplest developers outnumber all other developers combined. This makes their "layout engine" the most popular, in much the same way that people who do not know how to drive set the popular rules of the road through their ignorance of the actual rules simply by outnumbering everyone else.

I feel there has been a great disturbance in the Blink School, as though millions of dancing animated hamsters suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly stationary but not silenced.

Blink doesn't support blink?

[Chris Mattern]

How ironic.

Schrödinger is not amused

[TWX]

How are we supposed to now write Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment in only one line now?

Use CSS

[DERoss]

Since CSS 1 and still in CSS 2.1, blink has been a recognized value of the text-decoration property. For accessibility, browsers should blink slowly so as not to trigger epilepsy events in susceptible individuals.

Re:Use CSS

[Carewolf]

It is an optional part of CSS, and not supported by WebKit or Blink.

Geocities

[symes]

In the blink of an eye all that old Geocities goodness will be wiped away from the eyes of the unsuspecting.

Re:Geocities

[plover]

In the blink of an eye all that old Geocities goodness will be wiped away from the eyes of the unsuspecting.

How? They're not adding a <tasteful> tag.

So, "the end of days" ?

[fire4ever]

In older versions when typing "about:mozilla" we can read:

"And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days."

Re:CSS already supports it.

[dackroyd]

Well this might - be really I'm not sure I _want_ this to work. http://jsfiddle.net/Danack/3pFUS/6/

Sample code for animating opacity

[tepples]

How are we supposed to now write Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment in only one line now?

Another user mentioned CSS3 animations, and there exists sample CSS3 code for animating opacity.

Re:no problem (Marquee)

[markzip]

Somewhere in the Wayback Machine there is a page I coded in 1997. It featured

marquee

nested inside

blink

. And I did it because the client's kid thought it was cool. I bet he's sorry to see it go, I know I am. ;-)

I admit to using text-decoration: blink;

[Alain Williams]

In one web application a form has to be completed within 10 minutes. I have a bit of javascript that puts a message the top of the screen when there are 90 seconds to go, and then makes it blink when there are only 30 seconds left. I don't pretend that it is pretty, but it can bring the user back to a task that they got part way through before being distracted.

Just because something can be used to create monstrosities does not mean that it should be banned. If that were the case, then ban .jpg on the grounds of what used to be found at goatse.cx