Trying to animate backgroundcolor on a uilabel to achieve a 'fade' effect, but it applies instantly

Question

I'm trying to animate backgroundcolor on a uilabel to achieve a 'fade' effect. My code looks like this:

UILabel *lbl = ...
UIColor *oldCol = lbl.backgroundColor;
lbl.backgroundColor = [UIColor blueColor];
[UIView animateWithDuration:1.0 animations:^(void) {
    lbl.backgroundColor = oldCol;
}];

But it instantly reverts to the original colour. I also tried the below, to isolate the problem:

lbl.backgroundColor = [UIColor blueColor];
[UIView animateWithDuration:1.0 animations:^(void) {
    lbl.backgroundColor = [UIColor greenColor];
}];

And it instantly goes to green. Any ideas?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

4

Background color of UILabel isn't animatable. See How to animate the background color of a UILabel? for a possible workaround.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

Community

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answered May 11 '11 at 03:10

David Neiss

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 09 '15 at 07:17

The UILabel background color itself isn't animatable, but the UILabel layer background color is. So don't set the main background color, otherwise it will hide the layer color. Just make the main background clear so that the layer shows through.

myLabel.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()

If you need to set an initial color you can do it like this:

myLabel.layer.backgroundColor = UIColor.blueColor().CGColor

Then to animate this color to a new one you can do the following:

UIView.animateWithDuration(1.0, animations: {

    self.myLabel.layer.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor().CGColor
})

This answer is in Swift, but the idea is the same.

Trying to animate backgroundcolor on a uilabel to achieve a 'fade' effect, but it applies instantly

2 Answers2