Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
2
IN THIS CHAPTER
What Can and
.
What Can I Animate?
.
What Should I Animate?
C
ore Animation provides a wide array of properties that
you can animate on both Core Animation layers and Cocoa
windows and views. But just because you have Core
Animation in your toolkit, though, doesn't mean it should
be used for everything in your app. This chapter looks at
the properties you can animate and discusses whether you
should animate them.
Core Animation is a great technology, but every great tech-
nology can be overused or downright abused. We make
some suggestions to help you avoid the pitfalls that lead to
such abuse. You'll be thankful you took our advice and so
will your users.
Animation is something that you apply to visual things:
windows, views, and layers. Animation doesn't make sense
unless there is something being changed visibly on the
screen. This is why although you can use a layer as a key-
value coding container for custom properties, you might
not animate those properties. Animatable properties are
only those properties that provide visual feedback when
changed and are the only properties that are animatable
according to the Core Animation specification.
The categories covered in this section help you get a better
understanding of what properties are available for you to
animate.
