---
title: Text effects — family design
type: reference
audience: human + agent
authority: E3 design record — why the text-effects family exists, where each member sits, and the doctrine every member obeys
status: current
related:
  packs: docs/architecture/packs.md (the sibling stream — decorative backgrounds went to the pack tier)
  format: src/uix/eidos/components/format-number/README.md (CountUp's service-component sibling)
---

# Text effects — family design

The text-effects family is one of the two outcomes of incorporating a large
animation collection into the ecosystem. The collection split along a single
axis — **what the animation is applied to**:

- **Backgrounds** paint behind content and touch nothing semantic → they are
  decorative leaves → they went to the **pack tier**
  ([`architecture/packs.md`](../architecture/packs.md), the `Ambient` pack).
- **Text effects** treat REAL text content the reader consumes → the
  accessibility surface *is* the contract surface → they are **canon**
  components (this document).

Both streams share one provenance rule: the seed collection
(`web/routes/demos/animations`) is kept intact as comparative reference and is
NOT the shipped code; every component is a clean re-implementation against the
ecosystem's contracts.

## The members

Six components, in two roles (decision D-T1):

| Component | Role | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [`CountUp`](../../src/uix/eidos/components/count-up/README.md) | **service** | Spring-counts a number to a target on viewport entry, formatting every frame through `uix.format.numbers`. |
| [`TextGradient`](../../src/uix/eidos/components/text-gradient/README.md) | decorative (CSS) | Animated gradient painted through the text (`background-clip`), token- or preset-driven. |
| [`TextCircular`](../../src/uix/eidos/components/text-circular/README.md) | decorative (JS) | Characters on a spinning circle; hover retunes the spin. |
| [`TextBlur`](../../src/uix/eidos/components/text-blur/README.md) | decorative (WAAPI) | Staggered blur→sharp entrance per word/letter on viewport entry. |
| [`TextFocus`](../../src/uix/eidos/components/text-focus/README.md) | decorative (CSS+JS) | Every word blurred except the active one; a corner frame travels to it. |
| [`TextScramble`](../../src/uix/eidos/components/text-scramble/README.md) | decorative (JS) | Characters near the pointer flicker through a charset and settle back. |

**`CountUp` is a service component**, not a text effect (D-T2): it is the
animated sibling of `<FormatNumber>` — formatting is FormatNumber's job,
counting is CountUp's, and both route through the same locale-aware runtime
formatter. It carries no CSS recipe (the E-2.2 exception), like the rest of
the service family (`Trans` / `FormatNumber` / `FormatDate` / `RelativeTime`).

The five `Text*` decoratives (D-T4 naming: the `Text*` prefix groups them in
the catalog beside the typographic primitives) are **eidos-native passive
components** — a morfo (parts + data-attrs, no events), an eidos recipe where
there is styling to own, and NO soma provider: none owns an accessible state
machine, so the 2-of-3 rule leaves them at eidos-only. Their interaction
(hover retune, pointer proximity) is decorative modulation of an ambient
loop, not a semantic event — hence a **0-event morfo** with a passive
justification, the same class as `banner` / `box`.

## Why canon and not the pack

A background is invisible to the a11y tree (`aria-hidden`, pointer-transparent)
— nothing in the system selects against it, so it earns the pack's exemption
from the acceptance matrix. A text effect wraps content a screen reader must
read and a keyboard user may reach. That is contract surface by definition:
the moment an artifact owns an accessibility obligation, it enters the canon
through the normal route and takes its row in `component:audit`. The
[admission rule](../architecture/packs.md#the-admission-rule-canon-vs-pack)
is the same rule read from the other side.

## The doctrine every member obeys

The seeds were self-contained demos; bringing them into the ecosystem meant
correcting the same citizenship gaps in each. These corrections ARE the design
— they are what makes a "text animation" a UIX component rather than a pasted
snippet:

1. **The content is the accessibility surface, always.** Effects that split
   text into per-character/word spans (`TextBlur`, `TextScramble`) keep the
   real string in a visually-hidden node and mark every animated fragment
   `aria-hidden` — a screen reader reads one continuous string, never
   letter-by-letter debris. `TextCircular` uses `role="img"` + `aria-label`.
   `TextGradient` leaves the text untouched (paint-only). This is an **upgrade
   over the seeds**, which shipped no SR surface.
2. **No fake interactivity.** `TextFocus`'s seed stamped `role="button"` +
   `tabindex="0"` on every word with no activatable action — a keyboard trap
   of phantom buttons. The component drops them: the words are presentational,
   the sentence reads as text. An effect only claims an interactive role when
   it owns a real interactive contract (which would move it up a class — see
   each component's Gaps).
3. **Measurement discipline.** Layout reads run coalesced post-layout via
   `dom.measure`, never sync-after-write. `TextScramble`'s seed measured every
   character's rect on every `pointermove` (a reflow storm); the component
   caches character centers once per layout (invalidated by `ResizeObserver`)
   and does a single container read per move. `TextFocus` reads the active
   word's rect the same way.
4. **Reduced motion is honored.** Where a seed ignored it (`TextCircular`
   spun forever), the component renders a static, legible state under
   `prefers-reduced-motion`; the others jump to the final frame or freeze.
5. **Platform access through the ecosystem.** `IntersectionObserver` and rAF
   arrive via `eidos.dom` (`observeIntersection` / `requestFrame`); delay and
   cadence timers via `eidos.timers`; the reduced-motion query via
   `eidos.dom.prefersReducedMotion`. No raw `setTimeout` / `setInterval` /
   `requestAnimationFrame` / `matchMedia`.
6. **Theme-aware color.** Color params accept eidos token names — CSS-native
   `var()` interpolation for the gradient stops (`TextGradient` re-tints on a
   mode switch with zero JS), or `var()`-wrapped custom properties for the
   focus frame. `TextGradient` additionally consumes the theming's named
   gradients (`--gradient-{preset}`, decision D-T3) so the S9 gradient
   vocabulary is available alongside free stops.

## Where the animation lives (per member, D-T5)

Animation home follows the motion doctrine (perceptual anchoring; animation =
a channel), not a single mechanism:

- **CountUp** — an analytic damped-harmonic-oscillator spring evaluated in JS
  per frame. `$motion`'s `spring` driver animates element CSS properties, not
  numeric callbacks, so it does not apply; the spring is local.
- **TextGradient** — pure CSS keyframes in the recipe (an ambient
  background-position pan), annotated `/* functional: */` per R-4.5.
- **TextBlur** — WAAPI stagger from the wrapper. This is a content ENTRANCE;
  when the motion service's content domain lands
  (`src/uix/eidos/MOTION_SERVICE_RFC.md`) the stagger migrates behind it.
- **TextCircular / TextScramble** — continuous JS state stepped by
  `eidos.dom.requestFrame`.
- **TextFocus** — CSS transitions gated by `eidos.timers`.

## The Aura connection

`TextCircular` is orbital text around a round shape — a candidate piece of the
periphery of the future agent-presence component (reserved name `Aura`; the
promotion path is in [`architecture/packs.md`](../architecture/packs.md#the-promotion-path-the-agentic-direction)).
It stays presentation-only so `Aura` can compose it; the agent-lifecycle
events would be declared by `Aura`'s morfo (`delegate` / `sustain`), never by
`TextCircular`.

## Verification

Each member self-documents (per-component README with design · usage · API ·
Baseline · Comparativa · Gaps · Passive justification) and ships an
interactive demo at `web/routes/uix/components/{kebab}/`. The family passes the
acceptance matrix (`npm run component:audit`) as six passive components. The
per-effect user-facing decisions (D-T1…D-T5) were made in the session and are
summarized above; their working record is the (ephemeral) execution plan
`docs/process/PLAN-text-effects.md`.