Restoring animation where it left off when app resumes from background

I have an endlessly looping CABasicAnimation of a repeating image tile in my view:

a = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"position"];
a.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction 
                      functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionLinear];
a.fromValue = [NSValue valueWithCGPoint:CGPointMake(0, 0)];
a.toValue = [NSValue valueWithCGPoint:CGPointMake(image.size.width, 0)];
a.repeatCount = HUGE_VALF;
a.duration = 15.0;
[a retain];

I have tried to "pause and resume" the layer animation as described in Technical Q&A QA1673.

When the app enters background, the animation gets removed from the layer. To compensate I listen to UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification and call stopAnimation and in response to UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification call startAnimation.

- (void)startAnimation 
{
    if ([[self.layer animationKeys] count] == 0)
        [self.layer addAnimation:a forKey:@"position"];

    CFTimeInterval pausedTime = [self.layer timeOffset];
    self.layer.speed = 1.0;
    self.layer.timeOffset = 0.0;
    self.layer.beginTime = 0.0;
    CFTimeInterval timeSincePause = 
      [self.layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil] - pausedTime;
    self.layer.beginTime = timeSincePause;
}

- (void)stopAnimation 
{
    CFTimeInterval pausedTime = 
      [self.layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil];
    self.layer.speed = 0.0;
    self.layer.timeOffset = pausedTime;    
}

The problem is that it starts again at the beginning and there is ugly jump from last position, as seen on app snapshot the system took when application did enter background, back to the start of the animation loop.

I can not figure out how to make it start at last position, when I re-add the animation. Frankly, I just don't understand how that code from QA1673 works: in resumeLayer it sets the layer.beginTime twice, which seems redundant. But when I've removed the first set-to-zero, it did not resume the animation where it was paused. This was tested with simple tap gesture recognizer, that did toggle the animation - this is not strictly related to my issues with restoring from background.

What state should I remember before the animation gets removed and how do I restore the animation from that state, when I re-add it later?

Hey I had stumbled upon the same thing in my game, and ended up finding a somewhat different solution than you, which you may like :) I figured I should share the workaround I found...

My case is using UIView/UIImageView animations, but it's basically still CAAnimations at its core... The gist of my method is that I copy/store the current animation on a view, and then let Apple's pause/resume work still, but before resuming I add my animation back on. So let me present this simple example:

Let's say I have a UIView called movingView. The UIView's center is animated via the standard [UIView animateWithDuration...] call. Using the mentioned QA1673 code, it works great pausing/resuming (when not exiting the app)... but regardless, I soon realized that on exit, whether I pause or not, the animation was completely removed... and here I was in your position.

So with this example, here's what I did:

• Have a variable in your header file called something like animationViewPosition, of type *CAAnimation**.

• When the app exits to background, I do this:

  animationViewPosition = [[movingView.layer animationForKey:@"position"] copy]; // I know position is the key in this case...
  [self pauseLayer:movingView.layer]; // this is the Apple method from QA1673
  

  • Note: Those 2 ^ calls are in a method that is the handler for the UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification (similar to you)
  • Note 2: If you don't know what the key is (of your animation), you can loop through the view's layer's 'animationKeys' property and log those out (mid animation presumably).

• Now in my UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification handler:

  if (animationViewPosition != nil)
  {
      [movingView.layer addAnimation:animationViewPosition forKey:@"position"]; // re-add the core animation to the view
      [animationViewPosition release]; // since we 'copied' earlier
      animationViewPosition = nil;
  }
  [self resumeLayer:movingView.layer]; // Apple's method, which will resume the animation at the position it was at when the app exited
  

And that's pretty much it! It has worked for me so far :)

You can easily extend it for more animations or views by just repeating those steps for each animation. It even works for pausing/resuming UIImageView animations, ie the standard [imageView startAnimating]. The layer animation key for that (by the way) is "contents".

Listing 1 Pause and Resume animations.

-(void)pauseLayer:(CALayer*)layer
{
    CFTimeInterval pausedTime = [layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil];
    layer.speed = 0.0;
    layer.timeOffset = pausedTime;
}

-(void)resumeLayer:(CALayer*)layer
{
    CFTimeInterval pausedTime = [layer timeOffset];
    layer.speed = 1.0;
    layer.timeOffset = 0.0;
    layer.beginTime = 0.0;
    CFTimeInterval timeSincePause = [layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil] - pausedTime;
    layer.beginTime = timeSincePause;
}

After quite a lot of searching and talks with iOS development gurus, it appears that QA1673 doesn't help when it comes to pausing, backgrounding, then moving to foreground. My experimentation even shows that delegate methods that fire off from animations, such asanimationDidStopbecome unreliable.

Sometimes they fire, sometimes they don't.

This creates a lot of problems because it means that, not only are you looking at a different screen that you were when you paused, but also the sequence of events currently in motion can be disrupted.

My solution thus far has been as follows:

When the animation starts, I get the start time:

mStartTime = [layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil];

When the user hits the pause button, I remove the animation from theCALayer:

[layer removeAnimationForKey:key];

I get the absolute time usingCACurrentMediaTime():

CFTimeInterval stopTime = [layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil];

Using themStartTimeandstopTimeI calculate an offset time:

mTimeOffset = stopTime - mStartTime;

I also set the model values of the object to be that of thepresentationLayer. So, mystopmethod looks like this:

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- (void)stop
{
    const CALayer *presentationLayer = layer.presentationLayer;

    layer.bounds = presentationLayer.bounds;
    layer.opacity = presentationLayer.opacity;
    layer.contentsRect = presentationLayer.contentsRect;
    layer.position = presentationLayer.position;

    [layer removeAnimationForKey:key];

    CFTimeInterval stopTime = [layer convertTime:CACurrentMediaTime() fromLayer:nil];
    mTimeOffset = stopTime - mStartTime;
}

On resume, I recalculate what's left of the paused animation based upon themTimeOffset. That's a bit messy because I'm usingCAKeyframeAnimation. I figure out what keyframes are outstanding based on themTimeOffset. Also, I take into account that the pause may have occurred mid frame, e.g. halfway betweenf1andf2. That time is deducted from the time of that keyframe.

I then add this animation to the layer afresh:

[layer addAnimation:animationGroup forKey:key];

The other thing to remember is that you will need to check the flag inanimationDidStopand only remove the animated layer from the parent withremoveFromSuperlayerif the flag isYES. That means that the layer is still visible during the pause.

This method does seem very laborious. It does work though! I'd love to be able to simply do this using QA1673. But at the moment for backgrounding, it doesn't work and this seems to be the only solution.