Playing Animations
Animations are like movies on a page. They need some sort of prompt to start the show.
Setting events to play animations
The Events list lets you choose which mouse or page actions trigger the animation. The default is to have the animation play when the page comes into view, or is loaded.
Choose a trigger option from the Events list. A check mark appears next to its name. You’re not limited to just one event prompting an animation. For instance, you can have an animation play automatically when the page loads but also play when the viewer clicks the animated object. To add a second event for an animation, open the Events list again and choose another event. A second check mark appears next to that name. This indicates that two separate events can start the animation.
- On Page Load starts the animation when the page is visible. This can be when the viewer moves either forward or backward to view the page.
- On Page Click starts the animation when the user clicks anywhere on the page.
- On Click (Self) starts the animation when the object is clicked.
- On Roll Over (Self) starts the animation when the mouse moves over the area of the object.
- If you choose On Roll Over (Self), you can select Reverse on Roll Off to play the animation backwards when the mouse moves away from the object.
Creating a button to play an animation
You can also create a button to play an animation. The InDesign team figured (rightly) that people would want to quickly make buttons to play animated objects. So they made it very easy.
Start by applying a motion preset to the object. Then create the object that you want to use to trigger the animation. You don’t have to turn this object into a button. That will happen automatically as you follow these steps.
Select the animation object, and then click the Create Button Trigger icon in the Animation panel. A tool tip instructs you to click the object that you want to start (trigger) the animation. This converts the object into a button and also applies the action to play the animation. You now have a button that will play the animation. You can also click a button that is already on the page to add playing the animation to the actions for that button.