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JavaScript

Posted by Roven Loo
Roven Loo
7,834 Points

Why does the animations slowly stops when I am in a different tab?

Why does the animations slowly stops when I am in a different tab or when window is minimized?

It's this codepen link - http://codepen.io/heyjules/pen/LVoEOw

It works fine at first. But then once you tab out or minimize (for about 5- 10 sec), The "particles" have lessened, or even completely gone.

I know it's got something to do with "setTimeOut" (I've dug up some resources https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowTimers/setTimeout#Inactive_tabs). Thing is I'm not good with javascript :( How do I stop this from happening? Like I want it to keep running whether or not I'm in the tab or browser.

1 Answer

Gunhoo Yoon
Gunhoo Yoon
5,027 Points
Gunhoo Yoon
Gunhoo Yoon
5,027 Points

If you are not viewing the animated page, the logical thing will be to stop the animation and get some performance advantage. This is how requestAnimationFrame() or similar API supposed to work.

Remember that animations requires a lot of redrawing which is done by Browser.

In short, requestAnimationFrame is smarter version of setTimeOut() variants. I'm also not that good at JavaScript especially animating part. So I'm relying on external source.

Related article Dev.Opera || TeamTreeHouse Blog

Roven Loo
Roven Loo
7,834 Points

Thanks a lot man

Gunhoo Yoon
Gunhoo Yoon
5,027 Points

No problem just rely on those article but not what I mumbled.

Self-driven testing is always good but it's hard when you know little so I tend to accept my limit.