Adam Argyle's Sick Mouse-Out CSS Hover Effect

Browsing CodePen, I stumbled upon a captivating CSS hover effect by Adam Argyle. The demo's app-like feel, particularly the background color smoothly transitioning from left to right and then exiting right to left, immediately caught my attention. I spent a good while recreating it, a process that highlighted the elegant use of transitions, transforms, and offsets.

My initial approach focused on background transitions, manipulating background-size and background-position. However, I couldn't achieve the desired bidirectional movement.

Next, I explored CSS transforms. While scaleX() offered potential, applying it directly to the link element altered the content, an undesirable outcome. The solution? A pseudo-element!

Here's my implementation:

First, the base styles:

a {
  position: relative;
}

a::before {
  background: #ff9800;
  content: "";
  inset: 0;
  position: absolute;
  transform: scaleX(0);
  transition: transform .5s ease-in-out;
  z-index: -1;
}

This creates a pseudo-element (::before) with an orange background, positioned absolutely within the link. transform: scaleX(0); initially hides it, and transition ensures a smooth animation.

The hover effect is then defined:

a:hover::before {
  transform: scaleX(1);
  transform-origin: right;
}

On hover, scaleX(1) expands the pseudo-element, and crucially, transform-origin: right; sets the expansion point to the right. This is key to the mouse-out behavior.

The magic lies in the interaction of transition and the change in transform-origin. The transition smoothly animates the scaleX() from 0 to 1 on hover and back again on mouse-out. The shift in transform-origin from left (default) to right on hover reverses the animation direction for a seamless, bidirectional effect. Initially, I struggled with this, but the transform-origin property proved to be the missing piece.

Thanks to Adam Argyle for the inspiration! This effect demonstrates the power of simple CSS techniques when used creatively.

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