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Introduction to Animation Overview

Contents:

Organization of This Document
See Also

This document is intended as a general introduction to the animation capabilities provided to programmers in Mac OS X.

This document is for all developers interested in using animation in Cocoa applications. It is a good starting place if you have no prior knowledge of animation, but you should be familiar with the basic concepts of using views in a Cocoa application. You do not need any understanding of graphics programming in general, although such knowledge would be helpful.

If you are an advanced Cocoa developer and already familiar with animation techniques, you should read this book for tips on using animation efficiently in a Cocoa application, and how you can ensure that the animations you use integrate effectively with the Mac OS X user experience.

Organization of This Document

This document has the following chapters:

• “What Is Animation?” describes what animation is and how it is used in Mac OS X.

• “Animation Basics” describes the basic components of an animation.

• “Mac OS X Animation Technologies” describes the technologies that Mac OS X provides for animation.

• “Choosing the Animation Technology for Your Application” explores the strong points of Core Animation layers and layer-backed views and provides guidelines for choosing which is appropriate for your application.

See Also

For more information about Core Animation and the Cocoa animation classes, see the following resources:

• Core Animation Programming Guide provides detailed information on integrating Core Animation in your application.

• Animation Programming Guide for Cocoa describes the animation classes and protocols provided by the Application Kit.

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