[One (M7) Themes and Apps] Digitalkarma:
How-to Make Custom Animations

Custom Animations(WIP Guide)

don't think i have encountered a guide that goes in-depth about what the animation files do and how to understand some of the tags within the files. here's a guide on how to get started making custom transition animations if you have free time.

STEP 1

Open up your framework-res and go to res\anim\ folder

here are some of the anim xml files that can be visibily altered and seen by the user.

activity_close_enter

activity_open_enter

activity_close_exit

activity_open_exit

app_starting_exit

these xml's control the animations when you move from screen to screen within the application such as Settings. app_starting_exit is the animation you see when entering an app or in some instances exiting an app.

dialog_enter

dialog_exit

these anim's control the dialog pop up menus on the screen such as the Power Off Menu, Brightness/Sound menu's etc.

input_method xml's

in short, I believe these control the way the keyboard pops up. i think it affects Sense a little and probably more related to the aosp keyboard

lockscreen xml's

I believe the anim's control when you transition from lockscreen to the homescreen. it used to have some effect before on older Sense but haven't really tested on Sense 5.0/5.5. its probably has more effect on the aosp lockscreen than for HTC lockscreen..

options_panel_enter

options_panel_exit

these control the options menu on the homescreen. modding this used to work on Gingerbread with the menu panel on the bottom, but they are of no use anymore on Jellybean.. unless you are still running an old app that still use the GB menus...

push_down_in

push_down_up

push_up_in

push_up_out

these control the status bar animations for instance when you get an incoming text message, the text goes down, then up. but if you mod it you can make it go left or right or you can make it zoom in and out

recents xml

this controls the appearance and animation of Recent Apps menu. this does not work for Sense Recent apps, only for AOSP Recent apps. in Zen RLS2, i was able to make the recent apps menu scroll up when exiting.

task_close xmls

animation has something to do with closing apps

toast xmls

pretty much controls the way the toast menu enters and exits the screen

STEP2

now comes the modding part. I'm not going to hold your hand and tell you exactly how the code should appear and in what sequence they should be in. just going to explain what some of the tags do. i don't quite know all of them and I'm pressed for time but here goes:

<translate>

this tag controls the movement of the animation. you have Xdelta and Ydelta

Xdelta coordinates movement from side to side

Ydelta coordinates movement up and down

Example:Toast Menu

if you use fromXDelta="-100.0%p" to toXDelta="0.0%p" then your toast menu will enter from the left side of the screen to the middle where it naturally appears

if you use fromXDelta="100.0%p" to toXDelta="0.0%p" then your toast menu will enter from the right side of the screen instead.

<scale>

this tag controls the depth of the animation from the background to the foreground. you'll be using this tag if you want your animations to zoom in and out to give appearance of a 3D effect.

you have Xscale and Yscale from a scale value of 0.0 to 1.0. if you use from=0.0 to=1.0 the object will zoom out.

<alpha>

this tag controls the fading of the animations. if you use corresponding value fromAlpha=0.0 --> toAlpha=1.0, then the object will fade into view and if you switch the values around, the object will fade away.

rotate

this tag i rarely see, but controls the rotation of animations

well i guess that's it for now. if you have more insightful knowledge let me know and i'll add to it.