AnimationEffectTimingReadOnly.direction

The direction property of the AnimationEffectTimingReadOnly dictionary object represents the direction of the animation's playback along its timeline and its behavior after completing each iteration.

Syntax

// Getting the direction of the animation
var animationPlaybackDirection = animation.effect.timing.direction;

// Setting the direction of the animation
animation.effect.timing.direction = reverse;

Value

A DOMString which specifies the direction in which the animation should play as well as what to do when the playback reaches the end of the animation sequence in the current direction. It can take one of the following values, with the default being "normal":

"normal"

The animation runs forwards, from beginning to end, in the way we experience the flow of time.

"reverse"

The animation runs backwards, or "rewinds."

"alternate"

The animation switches direction after each iteration, going forward through the animation sequence the first iteration, then backward through the sequence the second iteration, and so forth.

"alternate-reverse"

Similar to "alternate", except the animation playback starts by going from the end of the animation sequence toward the beginning the first iteration, then goes forward during the second, and so forth.

Examples

In the Red Queen's Race example, we can inspect the Red Queen and Alice's animation to discover a production secret:

// Returns "reverse" because the sprite was created upside down!
return redQueen_alice.effect.timing.direction;

Specifications

Browser compatibility

[1] The Web Animations API is only enabled by default in Firefox Developer Edition and Nightly builds. You can enable it in beta and release builds by setting the preference dom.animations-api.core.enabled to true, and can disable it in any Firefox version by setting this preference to false.

See also

• Web Animations API
• AnimationEffectReadOnly.timing returns a AnimationEffectTimingReadOnly object...
• ...while AnimationEffect.timing returns a mutable AnimationEffectTiming object.
• CSS's animation-direction