Motion and animation

Every animation in JBrowser asks one object, Motion (core/motion.py), for its duration. When Fluid animations (appearance.animations) is off, every duration becomes 0 ms and every transition jumps straight to its end. On the first run the setting follows Windows' "Animation effects" accessibility option.

Using it#

from jbrowser.core.motion import motion

# animate a Qt property
motion().animate_property(widget, b"sidebarWidth", start, end, 220, on_finished=done)

# animate any value through a callback
self._anim = motion().animate_value(self, 0.0, 1.0, self._on_frame, duration=300,
                                    easing=QEasingCurve.Type.OutCubic, on_finished=self._done)

# a plain duration for your own timer
ms = motion().ms(Motion.NORMAL)          # 200, or 0 with animations off

• Standard durations: Motion.FAST (120 ms), NORMAL (200 ms), SLOW (280 ms).
• With animations off, animate_* call on_value(end) / set the property and on_finished() immediately and return None. Code must work when the returned animation is None.
• motion().changed fires when the setting changes; long-running effects (the canvas's pull indicator, the Gallery, web-page smooth scrolling) listen to it.

Stopping an animation safely#

Animations are started with QAbstractAnimation.DeletionPolicy.DeleteWhenStopped: Qt deletes them when they finish. A Python reference kept to an animation can therefore outlive the C++ object, and calling .stop() on it raises RuntimeError: wrapped C/C++ object … has been deleted. Stop stored animations defensively:

def _stop(anim) -> None:
    if anim is not None:
        try:
            anim.stop()
        except RuntimeError:        # it already finished and deleted itself
            pass

ui/gallery.py has exactly this helper, and clears its references in on_finished.

Painting animations#

For effects with many moving parts (the welcome, the Gallery's pop-in, the canvas layout), JBrowser animates one number (a time or a progress from 0 to 1) and computes everything else from it in paintEvent. That keeps effects in sync, makes them cheap, and means "animations off" only has to set the number to its end.

Easing helpers used across the UI: out_cubic, out_quint, in_out_cubic, out_back (overshoot) and seg(t, a, b) (the progress of t through the window a…b), defined in ui/onboarding.py and ui/gallery.py.

Guidelines#

• 120 to 300 ms for UI transitions; longer only for deliberate moments (the welcome).
• Ease out for things arriving, ease in-out for things moving between two places.
• Never animate something the user is waiting on, such as a page load.
• Always test with Fluid animations off.