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No.301 · Text Animations

Second Draft

A sentence written by someone who cares which word comes last. It types with human timing, selects “fast” backwards and deletes it, tries “calm” and strikes it through in pen, then writes “yours” in italics with a flourish beneath.

The prompt

The design brief behind this component — reuse it to regenerate, remix, or explain it.

Build a typed headline that revises itself: "We build software that feels fast" → (select "fast" backwards, delete) → "calm" → (strike "calm" through in pen, keep it) → "yours." in italic accent with a flourish underline. Model: the line is a list of segments {text, kind: plain | struck | final} plus a count of characters selected at the end. A cancellable async script (setTimeout promises checked against a stop flag) drives it once the block is 40% in view: type the lead at a human pace (55–110ms per character, +40–100ms after a space, +220ms after punctuation, spaces quicker), type "fast", wait 900ms, grow a system-style selection backwards one letter every 70ms, wait 380ms, delete; a "Draft n of 3" chip advances with each revision. Type "calm", wait 1s, mark it struck: it dims to 42% and a hand-drawn SVG line (non-scaling stroke) is revealed across it left to right with clip-path in 440ms. Then type " yours" 1.7× slower as the final italic accent segment, then ".", and draw a swash under "yours" (900ms). Caret: a thin bar after the last character that is solid while typing and blinks (steps, 1.05s) while it pauses, blinking four times after the end. Newsreader, clamp(2.1rem, 6vw, 4.6rem), min-height so the block never jumps. Replay restarts the script (disabled until it finishes). The animated line is aria-hidden; a visually hidden copy reads "We build software that feels yours." Reduced motion shows the finished line with marks already drawn. Themes: paper (rust pen) and night (amber).

Notes

Interaction
Plays when scrolled into view; Replay writes it again.
Motion
Human-paced typing (55–110ms/char with pauses), 70ms/char backwards selection, 440ms pen strike, 900ms flourish.
Accessibility
Screen readers get only the finished sentence; the typing is aria-hidden. It plays once (no loop) and reduced motion shows the final state.
Responsive
The line wraps normally, so typing only ever pushes words forward, and it reserves its height, so revisions never shift the layout below.
On touch
Not pointer-driven; identical on touch.

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301 components