Getting started with animations on Android

Want to get started with animations on Android? It turns out, things are surprisingly easy.


There are two ways to create animations:

1. Using OpenGL --- See documentation here
2. Using built-in View animations --- More here and here.

I explored the later. Basically the code boils down to the following:

1- Create an animation template. For example the following can be used to rotate an imageview back and forth:

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	<set xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
	android:shareInterpolator="true" android:ordering="sequentially">
	<rotate
	android:fromDegrees="0"
	android:toDegrees="30"
	android:duration="500"
	android:pivotX="50%"
	android:pivotY="50%">
	</rotate>
	<rotate
	android:startOffset="500"
	android:fromDegrees="30"
	android:toDegrees="-30"
	android:duration="1000"
	android:pivotX="50%"
	android:pivotY="50%">
	</rotate>
	<rotate
	android:startOffset="1500"
	android:fromDegrees="-30"
	android:toDegrees="0"
	android:duration="500"
	android:pivotX="50%"
	android:pivotY="50%">
	</rotate>
	</set>

view raw rotate_image_backforth.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

2- You can then apply the animation to the view using the following code:

	final ImageView image = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageview_to_animate);
	Animation rotate = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(getApplicationContext(), R.anim.rotate_picture);
	image.startAnimation(rotate);

view raw animate.java hosted with ❤ by GitHub

I created the following app to demonstrate various animations on arbitrary images:

Read the README.md for more details.

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