Problems with Animate() and Z Offset in v7

[cncb]

1) I have a panel with an Image as a child widget. I want to do a FadeOut, switch the image, and then do a FadeIn with the new image. So, I have the following code which worked perfectly in v6:

Animate("TheImagePanel", "Foreground", "FadeOut", 5000)
Refresh()
imagefile = "newimage.jpg"
Animate("TheImagePanel", "Foreground", "FadeIn", 5000)
Refresh()

The image does switch as expected but there is no animation at all. I have verified that "TheImagePanel" has LayerForeground in the Animation property and no unexpected Themes are being applied to it. Has anything changed in v7 that would affect this?

2) The other problem I'm having is trying to use a scale/zoom effect on a table item with focus (just like that in the Pictures browser). The problem is that the scaled item is drawn behind the other table cells even though I have the Z Offset property of everything set as "=If(Focused,1,0)". Nothing I try will bring the scaled item to the front. Any ideas? Thanks.

[MeInMaui]

If any menu in the STV uses the new animation system, then the old layer animation system will be disabled. You can override this in a given menu by adding an attribute named ForceLayerAnimations and setting it to true. That will force the old system to be used for that menu (but the new system will be disabled). If at all possible, you should use the new system. It is far far superior to the old layer system. HTH

Aloha,
Mike

[cncb]

Thanks, Mike. Adding that attribute doesn't seem to work for me. By the "new system" do you mean the Affects? I can't figure out how to get that to work either. Are these documented somewhere (the Studio manual doesn't seem to be updated)?

[MeInMaui]

Hi Craig,

Yes the new system is based on the Effects widgets. You place them as children of the UI widget that you want to animate and set up the trigger and effects through the Effects widget properties dialog. The best thing for now is probably to take a look at the V7 default STV. There are lots of usage examples there. I'm sure Opus4 will update the manual at some point with all that free time he has.

Aloha,
Mike

[cncb]

Any chance you could take a look at the attached .stvi and tell me what I'm doing wrong? It is a simple menu to test what I was describing. The Animate() calls work fine when I open it as an STV. However, they don't work if imported into STV7 even with the attribute added.

I then tried using effects and I guess I don't quite understand the triggers. Thanks for any help.

[MeInMaui]

Hi Craig,

I'll take a look at it tonight.

Aloha,
Mike

Edit: Andy just posted a very good writeup on use of the Effects widgets.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...112#post430112

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Hi Craig,

I'll take a look at it tonight.

Aloha,
Mike

Edit: Andy just posted a very good writeup on use of the Effects widgets.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...112#post430112

strange, i didn't think he'd have time for documentation until after he finished adding dynamic menus...

[MeInMaui]

Hi Craig,

Here are a couple of examples of ways you can achieve those effects using the new effects widgets. I'm sure there are other more elegant ways as well, but this should give you some ideas.

Aloha,
Mike

[cncb]

Thanks very much for the help, Mike. Do you have any idea why the Attribute to allow the old-style animation is not working?

[MeInMaui]

Hi Craig,

Sorry I didn't really look at the old style stuff. It was pretty late last night by the time I got to play. I'll take another look at it as soon as I have the chance.

Aloha,
Mike

[MeInMaui]

Hi Craig,

The old style animations didn't work because the ForceLayerAnimations attribute has to be a child of the theme for that menu. It can't just be a child of the menu itself. (Sorry, I missed that subtlety before) Once I moved it under your theme widget, the layer based animations worked for fade in and out. There are still some issues with the way you set up the swap animation.

Aloha,
Mike

[cncb]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

The old style animations didn't work because the ForceLayerAnimations attribute has to be a child of the theme for that menu

It's now working perfectly just like it did in v6. Thanks again, Mike.