Restore original animation of faded message bars

[nacin]

In [11837] (#10021), the fade animation on the admin notices was changed, and it doesn't appear it was intentional.

It is still doing the effect twice, but it used to be just the background color and now its the entire element via opacity.

This started on wp-hackers, ​http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-testers/2009-November/012009.html.

Patch attached to revert the changes and rely on background colors instead of opacity. Dev feedback may be helpful if this was intentional.

[azaozz]

The reason it was switched to fading is that jQuery doesn't support color animations by default and the plugin needed for this is slowing the loading. Perhaps we can make the fade more subtle, fading to 0.7 or 0.75 instead of 0.5, etc.

Also the color animation was almost invisible on most flat screens (tn panels) as they have deficiencies in showing fine color nuances.

[nacin]

Replying to azaozz:

The reason it was switched to fading is that jQuery doesn't support color animations by default and the plugin needed for this is slowing the loading.

Right, okay. jquery-color isn't marked as deprecated (as jquery-form), so I didn't catch that.

Perhaps we can make the fade more subtle, fading to 0.7 or 0.75 instead of 0.5, etc.
Also the color animation was almost invisible on most flat screens (tn panels) as they have deficiencies in showing fine color nuances.

Fair enough. I think it needs to be either a little more subtle, or a quicker effect.

I tried out the pulse at twice the speed, still animating between .5 and 1 opacity, and found it more noticeable yet less irritating than the drawn out animation. Patch attached with the values.

[janeforshort]

We need to be careful about color fades as cues. Color fades alone won't meet accessibility guidelines, and should only be used as secondary cues.

[nacin]

Replying to janeforshort:

We need to be careful about color fades as cues. Color fades alone won't meet accessibility guidelines, and should only be used as secondary cues.

I agree, and I'm all for improved cues. In this case, a strict color fade was changed to an opacity fade for performance reasons. At this point, I'm just suggesting we speed up the opacity fade to make it more noticeable and also less irritating, otherwise it's a pretty lousy cue.

[azaozz]

(In [12380]) Make animation faster for admin notices, props nacin, fixes #11267

[janeforshort]

I've seen this in action now and the sped-up fade is super distracting, not in a good way. It feels intrusive in a way that the WordPress admin doesn't feel anywhere else. I vote we get rid of the opacity changes altogether and just count on placement and background shading to make it clear that it's an alert message.

[azaozz]

Agreed, the faster animation makes it more disruptive. Removing it completely is closer to the original behavior as it was almost unnoticeable.

Fixed in [12385].