TimelineMax render() method, what is for force: Boolean parameter?

[Deco]

Hello, I will appreciate if you could help a newbie. At moment I perform documentation examination, and I met https://greensock.com/docs/TimelineMax/render() render()  method. Could someone explain me please, what is parameter force for?

 

Thanks in advance.

[GreenSock]

Sorry about any confusion there - it actually shouldn't even be in the docs (I just removed it). You can ignore that method. It is valid, but it's generally for internal use. It just forces the tween/timeline to render its state at a particular time but it does NOT adjust its position on its parent timeline. So it's a little bit like seek() or time() or totalTime() but without aligning the playhead with the parent timeline's. It the vast majority of cases, though, you'd WANT the playheads to align so that the tween/timeline would continue on playing from that point. 

 

The "force" parameter, when true, will force the render to occur even if the last render was at exactly the same time. GSAP is highly optimized, so it'll skip rendering at a particular spot if that's where the playhead is already positioned (because in most cases, that's wasteful). But there are some rare occasions when it's helpful to force it. Again, this method isn't generally intended for end users to call. 

 

If you need help accomplishing something in particular, just let us know and we'll do our best to help. 

[Deco]

Thank you very much for help!