- April 27, 2024
- Mins Read
Transition is a library that helps you build iOS view controller transitions. Implementing a nice interactive custom view controller transition involves quite a number of components. You have to implement the correct delegates, handle the switching between passive animation and active interaction phases, ensure the timing is right, think of interruption and cancellation, keep responsibilities separated… It quickly gets messy! This is where Transition helps you out: you just define the animation and the interaction, Transition ties it all together.
There are several examples (which can be found in Examples/
):
UITabBarController
transition animations with custom interaction.To run an example project, clone the repo, navigate to one of these example directories, and run pod install
from that directory first.
The AnimationLayer
is the most essential part of setting up a transition; without it, there’ll be no animation. An AnimationLayer
is a simple struct that takes two arguments:
This is a simple closure with the signature () -> Void
. In this closure you define your animation, just as you would with a UIView
or UIViewPropertyAnimator
animation. For each AnimationLayer
, Transition will instantiate a UIViewPropertyAnimator
, passing it your animation block.
This defines the timing of your animation. It must be a UITimingCurveProvider
, such as an instance of UICubicTimingParameters
or UISpringTimingParameters
.
Additionally, you can set an AnimationRange
, which by default is set to AnimationRange.full
. This range defines the start and end point (as fractions of the total transition animation duration) between which your AnimationLayer
‘s animation will run.
You create your AnimationLayer
as follows:
let animationLayer = AnimationLayer(timingParameters: UICubicTimingParameters(animationCurve: .easeOut)
animation: { topView?.transform = targetTransform })
😦 … Hey, wait! Where do that topView
and targetTransform
come from?
Your AnimationLayer
is defined as a part of your TransitionAnimation
. This represents all (non-interactive) animation during a transition. The TransitionAnimation
protocol exposes an array of AnimationLayers
. Additionally it contains two functions; one for setup and one for completion. Before starting animation, your setup function will be called, passing you the transitioningContext that among others contains the fromView
and toView
in the transition. The completion function is called when the entire transition completes, allowing you to clean up any temporary views added in the setup.
class SimpleAnimation : TransitionAnimation {
private weak var topView: UIView?
private var targetTransform: CGAffineTransform = .identity
func setup(in operationContext: TransitionOperationContext) {
let context = operationContext.context
let isPresenting = operationContext.operation.isPresenting
// We have to add the toView to the transitionContext, at the appropriate index:
if isPresenting {
context.containerView.addSubview(context.toView)
} else {
context.containerView.insertSubview(context.toView, at: 0)
}
context.toView.frame = context.finalFrame(for: context.toViewController)
// We only animate the view that will be on top:
topView = isPresenting ? context.toView : context.fromView
let hiddenTransform = CGAffineTransform(translationX: 0, y: -context.containerView.bounds.height)
topView?.transform = isPresenting ? hiddenTransform : .identity
targetTransform = isPresenting ? .identity : hiddenTransform
}
var layers: [AnimationLayer] {
return [AnimationLayer(timingParameters: AnimationTimingParameters(animationCurve: .easeOut), animation: animate)]
}
func animate() {
topView?.transform = targetTransform
}
func completion(position: UIViewAnimatingPosition) {}
}
🤔 … But what about duration?
You just defined the animation of your transition. You now create a Transition
struct that has an animation
part (your TransitionAnimation
) and an optional sharedElement
part, which you can see implemented in the Modal and Navigation examples. And the Transition
has a duration!
let transition = Transition(duration: 2.0, animation: SimpleAnimation())
😬 … And where do I put that transition?
Almost there. Say you want to use this transition for UINavigationController
transitions. Let’s make a convenience object that isolates transition-related functionality for a navigationController:
class MyNavigationTransitions {
let transitionController: TransitionController
let transitionsSource = MyNavigationTransitionSource()
init(navigationController: UINavigationController) {
transitionController = TransitionController(forTransitionsIn: navigationController, transitionsSource: transitionsSource)
}
}
class MyNavigationTransitionSource : TransitionsSource {
func transitionFor(operationContext: TransitionOperationContext, interactionController: TransitionInteractionController?) -> Transition {
return Transition(duration: 0.5, animation: SimpleAnimation())
}
}
The TransitionController
takes responsibility for animating transitions in the given navigationController, using an external TransitionsSource
to provide operation-specific transitions (the operation – in this case push or pop – can be obtained from the TransitionOperationContext
). This means you can return different transition animations for push and pop. You can also provide a single animation that behaves differently depending on the operation (see the SimpleAnimation
).
Now, initialize your MyNavigationTransitions
, passing it your navigationController.
🤓 … Is that it?
Yes!
😎
At least, for custom view controller transition animations. There’s a lot more that’ll help you set up a custom interaction gesture and a shared element that can move between the transitioning views.
The above steps are implemented in the SimpleExample
that can be found in the Examples/
directory.
Transition is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:
pod ‘Transition’
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