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Retro HTML, let's create marquees 😃

PublishedFebruary 09, 2020Time to read4 min read

One of the first things I learnt to do with HTML was using marquee to move text across the screen horizontally. It was so cool to be able to create advertisements on a page and make users notice things with just a tag. Of course people overused it and then it became a out of fashion item in the new designs just like baggy jeans from 90s.

History

The HTML <marquee> element was used to insert a scrolling area of text. You could control what happened when the text reached the edge of it’s area using its attribute. Of course when I use past tense it doesn’t mean it’s not supported anymore. It became obsolete a while back, but most browsers still support it.

You can see it in action:

CSS marquees

So I want to simulate some of these with just CSS. We’ll be using CSS animations and play with overflow to simulate text reaching to the edge.

Scrolling text

So let’s play with translateX() to specify the content placement at the start and end of the animation. We’ll use this to keep the text moving between start and end.

For the animation we will use an infinite linear with 10 seconds duration.

Copy 
.marquee {
  height: 50px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
}
.marquee span {
  font-size: 2em;
  color: turquoise;
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  line-height: 50px;
  text-align: center;
  transform:translateX(100%);
  animation: cssmarquee 10s linear infinite;
}
@keyframes cssmarquee {
  0% {
  transform: translateX(100%);
  }
  100% {
  transform: translateX(-100%);
  }
}

And the HTML is simple:

Copy 
<div class="marquee">
  <span>Scrolling Text </span>
</div>

Slide in

Now let’s slide in the text and fix it at the beginning. We’ll use ease-out with a 200% value for translateX start and 0% for the end.

Copy 
.marquee {
  height: 50px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
}
.marquee span {
  font-size: 2em;
  color: green;
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  line-height: 50px;
  text-align: left;
  animation: cssmarquee 10s ease-out;
}
@keyframes cssmarquee {
  0% {
    transform: translateX(200%);
  }
  100% {
    transform: translateX(0%);
  }
}

I won’t repeat the HTML code again to save some typing 😁. It’s exactly as above.

Left to right

Now let’s move the text from left to right this time. Again, we’ll use a linear infinite animation with the reverse values for translateX as our first example.

The only other difference will be the initial value for transform property.

Copy 
.marquee {
  height: 50px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
}
.marquee span {
  font-size: 2em;
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  color: green;
  margin: 0;
  line-height: 50px;
  text-align: center;
  /* Starting position */
  transform: translateX(-100%);
  animation: cssmarquee 20s linear infinite;
}
@keyframes cssmarquee {
  0% {
    transform: translateX(-100%);
  }
  100% {
    transform: translateX(100%);
  }
}

Scroll vertically

By now you should be comfortable guessing what will be using. Instead of translateX, we will be using translateY.

Copy 
.marquee {
  height: 100px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
}
.marquee span {
  font-size: 2em;
  position: absolute;
  color: green;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  line-height: 50px;
  text-align: center;
  transform: translateY(-100%);
  animation: cssmarquee 5s linear infinite;
}
@keyframes cssmarquee {
  0% {
    transform: translateY(-100%);
  }
  100% {
    transform: translateY(100%);
  }
}

Bouncing text

Now let’s assume back then people wanted to get fancy. We want to bounce the text this time 😃. We will need to add alternate to our animation and reduce the delay. We will also add trnslateX so that the content doesn’t bounce off the whole page.

Copy 
.marquee {
  height: 200px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
}
.marquee span {
  font-size: 2em;
  position: absolute;
  color: turquoise;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  line-height: 50px;
  text-align: center;
  transform: translateY(70%);
  animation: cssmarquee 1s linear infinite alternate;
}
@keyframes cssmarquee {
  0% {
    transform: translateY(70%);
  }
  100% {
    transform: translateY(0%);
  }
}

Typewriting effect

Now this time we want to mix our animation with a bit of stepping to create a typewriter effect. We will be using from and to for our keyframes. Then use steps and step-end to simulate the text and blink cursor effect.

Copy 
body {
  font-family: 'Special Elite', cursive;
  background: #efefef;
  padding-top: 5em;
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
}

.typewriter h1 {
  overflow: hidden; 
  border-right: .15em solid green; 
  white-space: nowrap;
  margin: 0 auto; 
  letter-spacing: .15em; 
  animation: 
    type 4s steps(50, end),
    blink-cursor .7s step-end infinite;
}

@keyframes type {
  from { width: 0 }
  to { width: 100% }
}

@keyframes blink-cursor {
  from, to { border-color: transparent }
  50% { border-color: green; }
}

Don’t forget to add the Special Elite font from Google fonts.

Copy 
<head>
  <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Special+Elite&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
</head>

Summary

That was it. You can go back to whatever important job you were doing. A bit of distraction is always good for me and hope this bit was good for you too 😊. Until next time 👋🏼.

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