Animation: persist() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2020.

The persist() method of the Web Animations API's Animation interface explicitly persists an animation, preventing it from being automatically removed when it is replaced by another animation.

Examples

Using `persist()`

In this example, we have three buttons:

"Add persistent animation" and "Add transient animation" each add a new transform animation to the red square. The animations alternate direction: so the first is left to right, the second is right to left, and so on. "Add persistent animation" calls persist() on the animation it creates.
The third button, "Cancel an animation", cancels the most recently added animation.

The example displays a list of all animations that have not been canceled, in the order they were added, along with each animation's replaceState.

HTML

html

<div id="animation-target"></div>
<button id="start-persistent">Add persistent animation</button>
<button id="start-transient">Add transient animation</button>
<button id="cancel">Cancel an animation</button>
<ol id="stack"></ol>

<template id="list-item-template">
  <li>
    <span class="replaceState"></span>,
    <span class="description"></span>
  </li>
</template>

CSS

css

div {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  background: red;
  transform: translate(100px);
}

JavaScript

const target = document.getElementById("animation-target");
const persistentButton = document.getElementById("start-persistent");
const transientButton = document.getElementById("start-transient");
const cancelButton = document.getElementById("cancel");
persistentButton.addEventListener("click", () => startAnimation(true));
transientButton.addEventListener("click", () => startAnimation(false));
cancelButton.addEventListener("click", cancelTop);
const stack = [];

let offset = -100;

function startAnimation(persist) {
  offset = -offset;
  const animation = target.animate(
    { transform: `translate(${100 + offset}px)` },
    { duration: 500, fill: "forwards" },
  );
  stack.push(animation);
  if (persist) {
    animation.persist();
  }
  // Add the animation to the displayed stack (implementation not shown)
  show(animation, offset);
}

function cancelTop() {
  stack.pop()?.cancel();
}

const stackDisplay = document.getElementById("stack");
const template =
  document.getElementById("list-item-template").content.firstElementChild;
const nodes = new Map();

function show(animation, offset) {
  const direction = offset < 0 ? "left" : "right";
  const li = template.cloneNode(true);
  const description = li.querySelector(".description");
  const replaceState = li.querySelector(".replaceState");
  description.textContent = direction;
  replaceState.textContent = animation.replaceState;
  nodes.set(animation, { li, description, replaceState });
  stackDisplay.append(li);
  animation.addEventListener("cancel", () => {
    nodes.get(animation).li.remove();
    nodes.delete(animation);
  });
  animation.addEventListener("remove", () => {
    nodes.get(animation).replaceState.textContent = animation.replaceState;
  });
}

Result

Note that adding a new transient animation will replace any previously added transient animation. Those animations will be automatically removed, and their replaceState will be "removed". However, persistent animations will not be removed.

Also note that removed animations don't affect the display; the position of the <div> is determined by the most recent active or persisted animation.

Specifications

Specification
Web Animations # dom-animation-persist

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

Animation: persist() method

Baseline Widely available

Syntax

Parameters

Return value