Origin of macOS Poof Animation
It used to be that when you dragged an item off the Dock and dropped it, the icon would disappear in a puff of smoke and make a satisfying noise. The animation was strangely primitive against the backdrop of the slick user interface of what used to called Mac OS X.
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The intention of the designer was that these drawings would stoke further discussion. That it would get cleaned up and refined later.
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What's silly is they kept the sound effect, but removed the animation so the icon just disappeared instantly. It wasn't until the next major OS version they even added a visual fade. But it still isn't right because, it fades back IN, then fades out. Huh?
You could even use it in your own apps. At the time I assumed they’d be adding more animations in future releases. Haven’t tried it lately, I should see what happens now.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsanimationeffect?language=objc
I know it's been going away for a while, but is it finally gone completely in Big Sur? It's still present in parts of Catalina.
@Sam, nope, the poof animation is actually still present in Big Sur when you drag an icon out of a window toolbar to remove it, like in Finder or Safari. I think that’s the only place where it’s still hanging around, though.
