tripleplay Animator add layer - playn

Question

I have the following (pseudo) code
root = _iface.createRoot(...)
Label l = new Label("hello world");
anim = Animator.create();
anim.delay(1500).then().add(root.layer, l.layer);
anim.delay(1000).then().action(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
// root.add(l);
System.out.println("it works");
}
});
the it work's line gets printed ok, so I assume I'm updating the animation right, but the label is never added to the scene!
If I uncomment the root.add(l) inside the Runnable it works as expected (the label is added after 1 second), but it doesn't get added with anim.delay(1500).then().add(root.layer, l.layer);
any idea whay I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

You can't just add the layer of a TPUI Widget to another layer and expect the Widget to render properly. A widget must be added to its parent via Group.add.
The animation code you are using is more designed for animating raw PlayN layer's than UI elements. UI elements are generally laid out using a LayoutManager which controls where the layer is positioned. If you tried to animate the layer directly, you would confuse the layout manager and generally mess everything up.
That said, it's pretty safe to animate the Root of the interface, because that anchors a whole UI into the PlayN scene graph.
If you really want to try what you're doing above, don't use Animator.add use:
action(new Runnable() {
root.add(l);
});
(like you have above) which properly adds the Label to the Root, and triggers validation and rendering of the Label.