you have a list , each time you remove elements on the list ,you want to fade out elements that are being removed for 0.5 secs. Explain me how you would do that.

Just create a custom binding (or whatever it is called, using knockout terminology here) which fades it via a jQuery fadeOut?

nope , you have very little control over how angularJS destroy dom nodes.

You are partially right... partially wrong.. You lose control for it only when you use ng-repeat.. you could alternately write your own repeat directive that does animations for adding or removing.. If your are not yet in a state to write this level of a directive yourself, you still have a few options. I remember someone had written a fadey directive that does fading animation, there is also a fork which does animation with ng-repeat. And if you can wait, this fork will be merged into the core angular , hopefully soon...