Why combine SVG timelines with GSAP?

SVG provides crisp visuals at any scale, ideal for timelines, progress indicators, or step-by-step narratives. GSAP offers fine-grained control over animations, easing, and timelines. Together, they unlock precise sequencing, draggable scrubbing, and immersive micro-interactions that remain performant on modern devices. If you’re exploring related techniques, check out SVG animations at SV Genius for inspiration and best practices.

• Resolution independence: SVG scales without blur on any device.
• Precise timing: GSAP timelines let you choreograph multiple elements in sync.
• Interactivity: Drag scrubbing, hover hints, and keyboard controls improve accessibility.

Getting a practical SVG timeline on the page

Start with a simple SVG timeline: a horizontal track, labeled ticks, and draggable handle. We’ll hook GSAP to animate the progress and to scrub by dragging the handle. You can adapt this pattern to show steps, milestones, or a scrolling narrative. For a broader reference, see their SVG animation patterns.

Implementation snippets: small, composable pieces

Here are compact, drop-in snippets you can adapt. They assume an SVG width of 800 and height 180, with a draggable handle and a progress path. You can paste these into a module or a script block in your project.

1) Basic GSAP timeline synced to SVG progress

Define a GSAP timeline that updates the SVG progress path as you scrub or autoplay. The example uses a simple linear path between start and end points.

// Setup: GSAP timeline controls the progress from 0 to 1

const t = gsap.timeline({paused:true});

t.to("#progress", { attr:{ d: "M40,90 L760,90" }, duration:1, onUpdate: ()=> updateUI(t.progress()) });

2) Drag to scrub

Make the handle draggable to scrub through the timeline. Use GSAP's Draggable plugin ( GSAP 3 requires the Draggable plugin as a bonus module if licensing allows; alternatively, implement with Pointer events).

// Pseudo: update progress by pointer position

document.getElementById("handle").addEventListener("pointerdown", startDrag);

3) Responsive updates

When the SVG resizes, recalculate the normalized progress. Bind to window resize and recompute the target coordinates.

window.addEventListener("resize", ()=>{ /* recompute coordinate mapping */ });

4) Accessibility and keyboard control

Allow left/right arrow keys to scrub. Update ARIA attributes so screen readers convey progress.

document.addEventListener("keydown", (e)=>{ if(e.key==="ArrowRight") go(0.01); else if(e.key==="ArrowLeft") go(-0.01); });

Practical tips for robust deployments

To keep this approach maintainable in larger apps, modularize: separate SVG markup, GSAP logic, and UI state. Here are practical tips you can apply today.

• Use a single GSAP timeline to coordinate all visual parts: track, ticks, labels, and handle. This keeps state consistent and avoids jitter.
• Prefer transform properties (e.g., translateX) for the handle, as they are often hardware-accelerated on modern browsers.
• Cache frequently queried DOM elements and avoid querying inside animation loops.
• Expose a public API for your timeline module so other components can sync to its progress (e.g., a scrolling panel or a carousel).

For real-world patterns and more advanced interactions, explore concepts and examples on SV Genius and adapt them to your design system.

Further learning and next steps

If you’re building components that rely on SVG timelines, consider exporting your timeline as a reusable web component or a React/Vue wrapper. GSAP’s robust timelines make it straightforward to expose play/pause, seek, and speed controls to consumers of your UI kit. For reference and deeper dives, visit SV Genius for gallery patterns and implementation notes.