Tutorial 130: Terminals and Cursors

Joe Clay | Jun 29, 2018

This week we take a quick look at how to make a nearly automatic cursor. We use a simple set of text animators to blink a cursor and follow the text as it types on. And you only need two keyframes! If you leave space before the write-on, the cursor will blink in place. I wish I had thought to do this sooner. It's already saved me a ton of time on the project I built it for.

Expressions

I've named the first Animator's group Typing and the second is called Cursor.

In Typing's range you add the following to Start:

Math.floor(value*text.sourceText.length);

Optionally, you can add this to End:

text.sourceText.length;

In Cursor's range add this to Start:

text.animator("Typing").selector("Range Selector 1").start;

And this goes in End:

text.animator("Cursor").selector("Range Selector 1").start+1;

And this goes in Cursor's Opacity:

Math.sin(time*10)*100;

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