Imitating a blink tag with CSS3 animations

Let me show you a little trick.

As Arkanciscan said, you can use CSS3 transitions. But his solution looks different from the original tag.

What you really need to do is this:

@keyframes blink {
  50% {
    opacity: 0.0;
  }
}
.blink {
  animation: blink 1s step-start 0s infinite;
}
<span class="blink">Blink</span>

JSfiddle Demo


Try this CSS

@keyframes blink {  
  0% { color: red; }
  100% { color: black; }
}
@-webkit-keyframes blink {
  0% { color: red; }
  100% { color: black; }
}
.blink {
  -webkit-animation: blink 1s linear infinite;
  -moz-animation: blink 1s linear infinite;
  animation: blink 1s linear infinite;
} 
This is <span class="blink">blink</span>

​ You need browser/vendor specific prefixes: http://jsfiddle.net/es6e6/1/.


There's actually no need for visibility or opacity - you can simply use color, which has the upside of keeping any "blinking" to the text only:

blink {
    display: inline;
    color: inherit;
    animation: blink 1s steps(1) infinite;
    -webkit-animation: blink 1s steps(1) infinite;
}
@keyframes blink { 50% { color: transparent; } }
@-webkit-keyframes blink { 50% { color: transparent; } }
Here is some text, <blink>this text will blink</blink>, this will not.

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/2r8JL/


The original Netscape <blink> had an 80% duty cycle. This comes pretty close, although the real <blink> only affects text:

.blink {
  animation: blink-animation 1s steps(5, start) infinite;
  -webkit-animation: blink-animation 1s steps(5, start) infinite;
}
@keyframes blink-animation {
  to {
    visibility: hidden;
  }
}
@-webkit-keyframes blink-animation {
  to {
    visibility: hidden;
  }
}
This is <span class="blink">blinking</span> text.

You can find more info about Keyframe Animations here.