Vars?

[SpaceMoney-01011000]

I keep coming across this term in the GSAP literature, but I'm confused as to what it means, or what it is. Is this nomenclature specific to GSAP? I can't find any information about it outside of the official documentation.

In which context is it being used in reference to GSAP?

[Carl]

For a little walk down memory lane... the vars object goes all the way back to the ActionScript 2 version of GSAP as you can see in the source code here.

 

If one were to dig into the ActionScript 3 documentation you could find note of it here.

 

Being that GreenSock had loads of faithful Flash users and a proven API, much of what was available in the Flash days made it over into the JS version and is still around today although version 3 was a major overhaul which greatly trimmed a lot of fat. 

 

Since the vars term was so grounded in the history of the API it kind of stuck around for awhile. I believe some folks prefer the term config object.

 

However, the documentation for gsap.to() pretty much sums it up 

 

1. vars - an object containing all the properties/values you want to animate, along with any special properties like ease, duration, delay, or onComplete (listed below). 

 

basically the vars object has all the stuff in bold below

 

gsap.to(obj, {x:300, y:200, delay:2, repeat:3, onComplete:done})

 

Hopefully this helps

[Cassie]

Also - a little more zoomed out.  'vars' is short for variables. This is true across JS in general.

 

i.e the variables object, an object containing variables that affect the animation. ☺️

[SpaceMoney-01011000]

9 hours ago, Cassie said:

Also - a little more zoomed out.  'vars' is short for variables. This is true across JS in general.

 

i.e the variables object, an object containing variables that affect the animation. ☺️

 

15 hours ago, Carl said:

For a little walk down memory lane... the vars object goes all the way back to the ActionScript 2 version of GSAP as you can see in the source code here.

 

If one were to dig into the ActionScript 3 documentation you could find note of it here.

 

Being that GreenSock had loads of faithful Flash users and a proven API, much of what was available in the Flash days made it over into the JS version and is still around today although version 3 was a major overhaul which greatly trimmed a lot of fat. 

 

Since the vars term was so grounded in the history of the API it kind of stuck around for awhile. I believe some folks prefer the term config object.

 

However, the documentation for gsap.to() pretty much sums it up 

 

1. vars - an object containing all the properties/values you want to animate, along with any special properties like ease, duration, delay, or onComplete (listed below). 

 

basically the vars object has all the stuff in bold below

 

gsap.to(obj, {x:300, y:200, delay:2, repeat:3, onComplete:done})

 

Hopefully this helps

Okay, now I get it!

The .to() method of the gsap object can have parameters passed in, as an object - denoted by the curly braces, and the key/value pairs - which is the vars object. 

Or, something like that.  

Good to know! Thanks so much guys!