Archived:Animating graphics item fading

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Qt Quick should be used for all UI development on mobile devices. The approach described in this article (using C++ for the Qt app UI) is deprecated.

Article Metadata

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Code Example

Source file: Media:Animation fw.zip

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Tested with

Devices(s): Symbian, Windows

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Compatibility

Platform(s): S60 3rd Edition, FP1
S60 3rd Edition, FP2
S60 5th Edition
Maemo

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Article

Keywords: QGraphicsItem, QPropertyAnimation

Created: tepaa (17 Dec 2009)

Last edited: hamishwillee (11 Oct 2012)

Overview

This series of snippets demonstrates how to implement nice animation effects into your Qt UI application. Qt 4.6 has Qt Animation Framework as a built-in feature. Documentation can be found here: [1]

This snippet shows how to animate a fade effect in QGraphicsPixmapItem.

See full example code here: File:Animation fw.zip

Preconditions

Qt 4.6 has been installed.

Header file

Define fade property and setter/getter function.

class PictureItem: public QObject, public QGraphicsPixmapItem
{
Q_OBJECT
 
    // Fade picture property for QPropertyAnimation
    Q_PROPERTY(int fade READ fade WRITE setFade)
 
public:
    // For fade property
    void setFade(int f);
    int fade() const;
 
    // Animate fade effects for this class
    void animateFadeIn();
    void animateFadeOut();
 
private:
    int m_fade;
    QPixmap m_originalPicForFade;
};

Source file

Implement setter/getter for fade property.

void PictureItem::setFade(int f)
{
    m_fade = f;
 
    // Store original picture before fading it "broken"
    if ((m_fade == 255 || m_fade == 0) && m_originalPicForFade.isNull()) {
        m_originalPicForFade = pixmap();
    }
 
    // Picture for fading
    QPixmap pic;
    if (m_originalPicForFade.isNull())
        pic = pixmap();
    else
        pic = m_originalPicForFade;
 
    // Actual fading
    QPixmap transparent(pic.size());
    transparent.fill(Qt::transparent);
    QPainter p(&transparent);
    p.setCompositionMode(QPainter::CompositionMode_Source);
    p.drawPixmap(0, 0, pic);
    p.setCompositionMode(QPainter::CompositionMode_DestinationIn);
    p.fillRect(transparent.rect(), QColor(0, 0, 0, m_fade));
    p.end();
    pic = transparent;
    transparent = 0;
 
    // Use new faded picture
    setPixmap(pic);
}
 
int PictureItem::fade() const
{
    return m_fade;
}

The animation is executed from the animateFadeIn() or animateFadeOut()method.

void PictureItem::animateFadeIn()
{
    // Start animate this class
    QPropertyAnimation* anim = new QPropertyAnimation(this, "fade");
    anim->setDuration(1000);
    anim->setStartValue(255); // from fully visible
    anim->setEndValue(0); // to invisible
    anim->setEasingCurve(QEasingCurve::Linear);
 
    QObject::connect(anim, SIGNAL(finished()), this, SLOT(animationFinished()));
 
    anim->start(QAbstractAnimation::DeleteWhenStopped);
}
 
void PictureItem::animateFadeOut()
{
    // Start animate this class
    QPropertyAnimation* anim = new QPropertyAnimation(this, "fade");
    anim->setDuration(1000);
    anim->setStartValue(0); // from invisible
    anim->setEndValue(255); // to fully visible
    anim->setEasingCurve(QEasingCurve::Linear);
 
    QObject::connect(anim, SIGNAL(finished()), this, SLOT(animationFinished()));
 
    anim->start(QAbstractAnimation::DeleteWhenStopped);
}

Postconditions

PictureItem can be faded by calling the PictureItem::animateFadeIn() or PictureItem::animateFadeOut() method.

Animation Framework snippet series

Full example code package

• Enabling Qt Animation Framework in an application
• Archived:Animating graphics item position in Qt
• Archived:Animating graphics item rotation
• Archived:Animating graphics item fading
• Archived:Animating graphics item scaling
• Archived:Animating graphics item position and rotation simultaneously