Greensock library, which is the best option, TweenLite, TweenNano, TweenMax, TimelineMax?

Question

Hi all, i am new in flash development, i heard that Greensock lib is the best one. But when am trying to download its really confusing. there are a lot of names like

* TweenNano
* TweenLite
* TweenMax
* TimelineLite
* TimelineMax
* Tweening Platform v11

Which is the best or full featured lib.. where do i get the download link for the complete package or. Please guide me if am wrong. :(

Answer 1

Id suggest using TweenLite, its the basic tweening package. TweenMax has some more features but I only ever rarely need them. Ive not used TweenNano as it seems to be missing some key functionality. The other packages are for more specific types of tweening, like the timeline packages.

This is from the website:

Why are TweenLite and TweenMax split into 2 classes instead of building all the functionality into one class?

1. File size. The majority of tweening doesn't require the extra features in TweenMax like setDestination(), timeScale, repeat, repeatDelay, etc. so TweenLite is perfectly sufficient. TweenLite prioritizes efficiency and small file size whereas TweenMax prioritizes a rich feature set.
2. Speed. TweenLite is slightly faster than TweenMax because it requires less code, although you'd probably never notice any difference unless you're tweening multiple thousands of instances. See the speed test.

TweenNano can do everything TweenLite can do with the following exceptions:

No Plugins - One of the great things about TweenLite is that you can activate plugins in order to add features (like autoAlpha, tint, blurFilter, etc.). TweenNano, however, doesn't work with plugins.

Incompatible with TimelineLite and TimelineMax - Complex sequencing and management of groups of tweens can be much easier with TimelineLite and TimelineMax, but TweenNano instances cannot be inserted into TimelineLite or TimelineMax instances.

Slight speed decrease - Under very heavy loads, TweenNano won't perform quite as well as TweenLite, but it is extremely unlikely that you'd notice unless you're tweening thousands of objects simultaneously.

Fewer overwrite modes - You can either overwrite all or none of the existing tweens of the same object (overwrite:true or overwrite:false) in TweenNano. TweenLite, however, can use OverwriteManager to expand its capabilities and use modes like AUTO, CONCURRENT, PREEXISTING, and ALL_ONSTART (see http://blog.greensock.com/overwritemanager/ for details).

Compared to TweenLite, TweenNano is missing the following methods/properties:

pause() play() resume() restart() reverse() invalidate() onStart defaultEase easeParams currentTime startTime totalTime paused reversed totalDuration

Answer 2

• TweenNano is for the most basic tweening (start a tween and knows when finish)
• TweenLite is the base of all. Have the complete functionality (to create, pause/play, restart an reverse a tween and a lot of plugins)

• TweenMax adds very useful things to TweenLite activating some plugins by default. Also adds the progress property that lets you move the tween time line where you want; event listeners and the special parameters: yoyo and loop (that makes a yo-yo-kind tweening and a loop a tween as many times you want)

• TimelineLite and TimelineMax are not Tweening engines, they are just TweenLite/TweenMax managers.

• Tweening Platform v11 is just the collection of TweenNano, TweenLite, TweenMax, TimelineLite and TimelineMax (is just a name for their products, like "Adobe Creative Suite")

Here you can download the complete Tweening Platform (to test the differences between TweenNano, TweenLite and TweenMax) or you can choose to download one of the features.

PS: Sorry for my poor English.

Answer 3

Like the others already said, I love TweenLite too :) Haven't used TweenMax cause I haven't had a need yet for their special tweens.

One thing that is missing tho is yoyo (automatically reversing a tween after a tween has finished) I hope they fix that soon.

WHOA, I just saw they added yoyo in TimelineMax :)

Answer 4

I would definitly recomend the original Tweener. Has everything you need, and not much that you don't. It's also been ported to every other language you can think of.

Answer 5

Start with TweenLite - it is the foundation of the whole tweening platform, and includes 90% of everything you will ever need. If for some reason you get a ways down the road and you realize you need some more advanced features like tween progress events, its trivial to swap out for tween max. Tween nano is only used in places where extremely minimal filesize is paramount - such as making a awesome banner in 15k. But again, these are very interchangeable and upgradeable.

As far as the timeline classes, stay away from them while you are just starting out. Once you get familiar with tweening with one of the aformentioned teqniques, you will encouter instances during some complex tween where you really want to use sequence, as in control nested groups of tweens, but agian, better to save that till you get up to speed with the general stuff, the timelinelite & max are icing on the cake and not really needed, but very usefull to a skilled tweener.

Good luck!

Answer 6

Note that if you're using Greensock for commercial use, you are supposed to pay a license. If you're working for a client rather than for yourself you have a responsibility to point that out!

I was using TweenMax up until the moment I realised that, then wholesale changed to Tweensy; it's still in incubation, but has a friendly license. The conversion wasn't pain-free, but I've yet to do anything in TweenMax that I couldn't do with Tweensy.