Animation

Adding Animations

In X6, adding animations to nodes or edges can significantly enhance the visual effects and interactive experience of the canvas. It supports multiple animation implementations including the animate API, CSS animations, and SMIL animations. Among these, the animate API is the most powerful, and this article will focus on its usage. Here’s a basic animation example:

import { Graph } from '@antv/x6'

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

const node = graph.addNode({
  shape: 'rect',
  label: 'hello X6',
  x: 100,
  y: 140,
  width: 100,
  height: 50,
  attrs: {
    body: {
      strokeWidth: 1,
      rx: 6,
      ry: 6,
    },
  },
})

node.animate(
  // Move the node's position from its original location to (300, 140) via animation
  { 'position/x': 300 },
  // Animation duration is 1000ms, when reaching the end point it will alternate back, with infinite iterations
  { duration: 1000, direction: 'alternate', iterations: Infinity },
)

For developers familiar with the Web Animations API, it’s clear that X6’s animate API is based on the Web Animations API standard. Therefore, its usage is largely compatible with the Web Animations API and implements most of its core features.

The animate API accepts two key parameters:

Keyframe configuration: Specifies the properties to animate and their target values. In this example, configured as an object where:
- key (position/x): The property path to animate
- value (300): The target value, moving the node from its current position to x-coordinate 300
Animation configuration: Parameters controlling animation behavior, including:

duration: 1000 means each animation cycle lasts 1000ms
direction: ‘alternate’ means the animation will alternate between start and end points
iterations: Infinity means the animation will repeat indefinitely

Animation Properties

Some developers might wonder why we use position/x instead of directly using the x property. This is because X6’s animation system is implemented based on the cell.setPropByPath() method, which modifies property values via property paths. A node’s property structure typically looks like this (can also be obtained via cell.prop() method):

{
  // ...
  position: {x: 370, y: 180},
  size: {width: 100, height: 60},
  attrs: {
    // ...
  }
}

Therefore, animating the position is done through position/x, with child properties concatenated using /. Other animation properties follow the same pattern. For example, to animate node size:

// Set node width to 200 with animation
node.animate({'size/width': 200 },1000)

Understanding this property mechanism means you can animate not just built-in node properties but also custom properties. For example, animating a custom ratio property in the node’s data:

import { Dom, Graph, Shape } from '@antv/x6'

Shape.HTML.register({
  shape: 'custom-html',
  width: 160,
  height: 80,
  effect: ['data'],
  html(cell) {
    // Custom HTML node receives an area ratio to control div size, which can be animated
    const { ratio } = cell.getData() ?? {}
    const div = document.createElement('div')
    const area = 12000
    const width = Math.sqrt(area / ratio)
    const height = width * ratio
    Dom.css(div, {
      width,
      height,
      background: '#fff',
      borderRadius: 10,
      border: "1px solid #000"
    })

    return div
  },
})

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

graph.addNode({
  shape: 'custom-html',
  x: 80,
  y: 80,
  data: { ratio: 1 },
  animation: [
    // Animate the custom node's aspect ratio
    [{ 'data/ratio': 3 / 5 }, { duration: 1000, iterations: Infinity }],
  ],
})

Declarative Animation

Besides using the API to add animations, the animate API also supports adding animations through node’s animation configuration, eliminating an extra step which can be practical in many scenarios. The following example achieves the same animation as above:

import { Graph } from '@antv/x6'

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

graph.addNode({
  shape: 'rect',
  label: 'hello X6',
  x: 100,
  y: 140,
  width: 100,
  height: 50,
  attrs: {
    body: {
      strokeWidth: 1,
      rx: 6,
      ry: 6,
    },
  },
  // Write animation configuration directly in node config, animation starts automatically when node is added to canvas
  animation: [
    [
      { 'position/x': 300 },
      { duration: 1000, direction: 'alternate', iterations: Infinity },
    ],
  ],
})

The animation configuration is an array:

Each item is an animation parameter array (corresponding to animate parameters)
After the node is added to the canvas, animations will automatically play according to the configuration

Registering Animated Shapes

A common scenario is adding the same animation to multiple nodes. Whether through repeated animate API calls or configuration, each node requires repetitive operations. X6 inherently supports reusing nodes by registering Shape, and animations can also be registered into Shape to enable animations for a group of nodes:

import { Graph } from '@antv/x6'

Graph.registerNode(
  'animated-rect',
  {
    inherit: 'rect',
    width: 150,
    height: 60,
    attrs: {
      body: {
        strokeWidth: 1,
        rx: 6,
        ry: 6,
      },
    },
    // Pre-configure animation when registering Shape
    animation: [
      [
        { 'position/x': 300 },
        { duration: 1000, direction: 'alternate', iterations: Infinity },
      ],
    ],
  },
  true,
)

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

graph.addNode({
  shape: 'animated-rect',
  x: 100,
  y: 50,
  label: "hello X6"
})

graph.addNode({
  shape: 'animated-rect',
  x: 100,
  y: 150,
  label: "hello Animation"
})

Animation Control

X6’s animate API is designed based on the Web Animations API, so it similarly supports flexible animation control capabilities like pause, resume, cancel, etc. Here’s a simple animation control example:

import { Graph } from '@antv/x6'

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

const node = graph.addNode({
  shape: 'rect',
  label: 'Click me to pause',
  x: 100,
  y: 140,
  width: 150,
  height: 60,
  attrs: {
    body: {
      strokeWidth: 1,
      rx: 6,
      ry: 6,
    },
  },
  animation: [
    [
      { 'position/x': 300 },
      { duration: 1000, direction: 'alternate', iterations: Infinity },
    ],
  ],
})

graph.on('node:click', ({ cell }) => {
  if (cell === node) {
    const [animation] = cell.getAnimations()
    animation.pause()
  }
})

Besides pausing animations, the animate API supports the following capabilities:

pause() Pause animation
play() Play/resume animation
cancel() Cancel animation
finish() Finish animation
reverse() Play animation in reverse
updatePlaybackRate() Update animation playback speed

Animation Events

X6 supports two styles of animation events. One is based on Web Animations API design, such as setting onfinish to listen for animation events:

import { Graph } from '@antv/x6'

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

const node = graph.addNode({
  shape: 'rect',
  label: 'Click me to start',
  x: 100,
  y: 140,
  width: 150,
  height: 60,
  attrs: {
    body: {
      strokeWidth: 1,
      rx: 6,
      ry: 6,
    },
  },
})

graph.on('node:click', ({ cell }) => {
  if (cell !== node) return

  const animation = node.animate(
    { 'position/x': [100, 300] },
    { duration: 1000, direction: 'alternate', iterations: 1 },
  )

// Listen to animation events via onfinish
  animation.onfinish = () => {
    console.log('Animation finished')
  }
})

Web Animations API style supports these events:

onfinish Animation finished
oncancel Animation canceled

The other style is based on X6’s own design, using the on API to listen for animation events:

import { Graph } from '@antv/x6'

const graph = new Graph({
  container: document.getElementById('container'),
  height: 300,
  background: {
    color: '#F2F7FA',
  },
})

const node = graph.addNode({
  shape: 'rect',
  label: 'Click me to start',
  x: 100,
  y: 140,
  width: 150,
  height: 60,
  attrs: {
    body: {
      strokeWidth: 1,
      rx: 6,
      ry: 6,
    },
  },
})

graph.on('node:click', ({ cell }) => {
  if (cell !== node) return

  node.animate(
    { 'position/x': [100, 300] },
    { duration: 1000, direction: 'alternate', iterations: 1 },
  )
})

// Listen to animation events via on
graph.on('node:animation:finish', () => {
  console.log('Animation finished')
})

X6’s native event system supports these events:

cell:animation:finish Animation finished
cell:animation:cancel Animation canceled

For detailed X6 event system, see Events.