deckcraft/docs/animation-parity.md

Transitions and animations: parity with PowerPoint

Last reviewed: 2026-10-14 · Last updated: 2026-10-14 · Change: minor (community PR wave 2026-10-14: interactive-deck triggers, canvas preview, the Animation Pane timeline, repeat and bounce end round-trip; duplicated rows and headers folded; previous: major, transitions measured frame by frame against PowerPoint for Windows' video export) · Target: Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 16.113 (Microsoft 365)

Transitions and animations are what make a deck a presentation, and the part of PowerPoint people notice first when it's missing. Scores roll up into target-app-parity.md (Transitions ~80% ready, Animations ~65%); gaps are in gaps.md.

Transitions: 48 of 48

crates/model/src/anim.rs TRANSITIONS lists every transition in PowerPoint's gallery, in its three groups, with its Effect Options (now also Page Curl Single, Glitter Hexagons, Shred In/Out and Zoom and Rotate). All 48 round-trip through PPTX with the elements, attributes and defaults PowerPoint itself writes (every_transition_kind_round_trips, transition_xml_matches_powerpoints_elements, transition_defaults_read_like_powerpoint): 145 of 145 PowerPoint-built test slides reopen in PowerPoint with the same effect after a DeckCraft save.

Measured against PowerPoint (2026-10-13). Synthetic two-colour decks with asymmetric markers were built in PowerPoint for Windows over COM with every transition and option (150 variants, 2 s each), exported with CreateVideo at 30 fps, and compared frame by frame with deckcraft-cli render-transition at the same progress (plan/powerpoint/tools/synth_transitions.ps1, trans_compare.py). Mean absolute difference over all variants at t = 0.1…0.9 (0–255): 35.7 before, 15.0 after. Curves (fades are a smoothstep, moves ease in-out; Cover, Uncover and Pan have their own measured curves), directions and option meanings (e.g. Glitter starts on the option's side, Ripple's corner is where the wave heads, Wind/Airplane/Origami "Left" is invX), soft edges (Wipe, Split, Shape, Clock, Ripple) and the Dynamic Content transitions moving the slides' contents over cross-fading backgrounds now follow PowerPoint. 3-D transitions are perspective-projected cards (crates/anim/src/transition_geom.rs) drawn with perspective-correct subdivided meshes.

Group	PowerPoint	DeckCraft	Fidelity
Subtle (Morph, Fade, Push, Wipe, Split, Reveal, Cut, Random Bars, Shape, Uncover, Cover, Flash)	12	12	Matches PowerPoint's frames (mean diff 1–8; Random Bars and Reveal Through Black ~15)
Exciting (Fall Over, Drape, Curtains, Wind, Prestige, Fracture, Crush, Peel Off, Page Curl, Airplane, Origami, Dissolve, Checkerboard, Blinds, Clock, Ripple, Honeycomb, Glitter, Vortex, Shred, Switch, Flip, Gallery, Cube, Doors, Box, Comb, Zoom, Random)	29	29	Perspective 3-D cards with measured motion; cloth, paper and particle effects (Curtains, Peel Off, Page Curl, Airplane, Origami, Fracture, Crush, Honeycomb, Vortex, Shred) are flat approximations of PowerPoint's meshes
Dynamic Content (Pan, Ferris Wheel, Conveyor, Rotate, Window, Orbit, Fly Through)	7	7	Contents move over cross-fading backgrounds, as in PowerPoint (mean diff 5–17)

Transition feature	PowerPoint	DeckCraft
Effect Options per transition	yes	yes
Duration, advance on click / after time, Apply To All	yes	yes
Transition sounds	yes	yes: Transitions › Sound offers six built-in sounds (synthesised, no sound files shipped), Other Sound…, [Stop Previous Sound] and Loop Until Next Sound; they play in the show and round-trip
Preview in the editor	yes	yes
Morph: objects move, resize, recolour; unmatched text boxes fade in place; a picture's crop morphs	yes	yes (#119, #118)
Morph: Words and Characters	yes	yes (#5)
Morph: geometry (circle to star)	yes	yes (#27)
Morph: !! name forcing, pictures, 3-D models, ink	yes	names partly; no 3-D or ink
Frame-by-frame comparison with PowerPoint		done (Windows, 2026-10-13); headless frames: deckcraft-cli render-transition

Animations: 64 of ~190 effects

Class	PowerPoint (gallery + More Effects)	DeckCraft	Missing (examples)
Entrance	~50	24	Plus, Wedge, Basic Zoom, Center Revolve, Compress, Stretch, Boomerang, Credits, Curve Up, Drop, Flip, Float, Pinwheel, Spiral In, Whip, Ascend, Descend, Unfold
Emphasis	~25	17	Brush Color, Bold Reveal, Contrasting Color, Flicker, Grow With Color, Shimmer, Blink
Exit	~50	14	Mirrors of the missing entrance effects, plus Blinds, Box, Checkerboard, Circle, Diamond, Peek Out, Strips as exits
Motion paths	64 presets + custom	40 + Custom Path (Lines, Arcs, Turns, Loops, Basic shapes such as stars, heart, moon, teardrop; Lines & Curves such as zigzag, waves, S curves, spirals, bounces; Special such as figure 8, bean, peanut, neutron)	Remaining ~24 presets (some Basic shapes, Lines & Curves variants)
Media (Play, Pause, Stop)	3 (+ Seek)	3	Seek, bookmarks as triggers

By how often people use them, the effects present cover nearly all real decks (Appear, Fade, Fly In, Wipe, Zoom, Float In, Grow/Shrink, Pulse, Spin, motion lines): weighted, ~85% of use; by count, ~34%.

Animation feature	PowerPoint	DeckCraft
Start On Click / With Previous / After Previous, duration, delay	yes	yes
Effect Options (direction, sequence by paragraph)	yes	yes
Effect dialog: sound, after-animation dim/hide, animate text by word/letter, smooth start/end, bounce end, repeat, rewind	yes	partly; repeat and bounce end round-trip; rewind lost on PPTX save (#77)
By-paragraph text builds, sub-bullets follow parents	yes	yes
Triggers (on click of a shape)	yes	yes; played in the show: a step per click, the sequence starts over after its last step, a click completes a playing step
Triggers on a media bookmark	yes	no
Animation Painter	yes	yes (#54)
Animation Pane: list, reorder, remove	yes	yes
Animation Pane: advanced timeline (bars you drag)	yes	yes: bars from the show schedule, drag the body for delay, the right edge for duration, seconds ruler (animpane_tests)
Preview on the editor canvas (the current slide)	yes	yes
Preview from the selected effect	yes	no
Motion path editing (edit points, reverse, lock)	yes	partly (no edit points)
Multiple animations on one object	yes	yes
Round trip of the timing tree	yes	flattened to the pane list on read, rebuilt on write (every_animation_effect_survives)

Estimates

Work	Hours
Preview from selected, effect dialog depth	4–6
The remaining ~126 effects (most are parameter variations of existing ones)	3–6
Rewind and other effect options on round trip (#77)	1–2
Transition sounds: the rest of PowerPoint's built-in list (Applause, Arrow, Bomb…)	1
Morph across pictures, !! names, align once per transition (#67)	2–4
Cloth, paper and particle transitions as real meshes (Curtains, Peel Off, Page Curl, Airplane, Origami, Vortex, Shred, Honeycomb)	4–8
Total	~15–27 (the Transitions and Animations rows of the feature table; part of the Features dimension's 140–240 h)

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-14	trivial	Community PR wave folded: the Animation Pane timeline row says yes (it landed), preview split into canvas (yes) and from the selected effect (no); estimates drop the timeline and transition sounds (~15–27 h)
2026-10-14	trivial	Repeat and bounce end round-trip through PPTX; rewind is still lost (#77)
2026-10-13	minor	Animations ▸ Preview and Animation Pane ▸ Play All play the current slide's animations on the editor canvas; preview from the selected effect is still open
2026-10-13	major	Transitions measured frame by frame against PowerPoint's video export and retuned (mean diff 35.7 → 15.0); PowerPoint's XML defaults and option meanings; new options
2026-10-13	minor	Triggers now play in the slide show (they were read and written but never started), effects of different triggers apply in the order they were clicked
2026-10-11	minor	Morph leaves unrelated text boxes unpaired: they fade in place (#119)
2026-10-11	minor	Morph animates a changed picture crop (#118)
2026-10-10	major	Created: 48/48 transitions, 64 of ~190 animation effects, pane and option depth, estimates