Introduction to Animation Overview

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

• Animation Basics describes the basic components of an animation.

• OS X Animation Technologies describes the technologies that 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.