Blinking effect on UILabel

Question

I have a UILabel with background color as grey.

I want a blinking effect on this label like it should become a little white & then become gray and it should keep

Answer 1

Rather use the view animations. It makes it very simple and is easy to control. Try this:

self.yourLabel.alpha = 1.0f;
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.12
  delay:0.0
  options:UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut | 
          UIViewAnimationOptionRepeat | 
          UIViewAnimationOptionAutoreverse | 
          UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction
  animations:^{
   self.yourLabel.alpha = 0.0f;
}
completion:^(BOOL finished){
// Do nothing
}];

You can tweak the values to get different effects for example, changing animateWithDuration wil set the blinking speed. Further you can use it on anything that inherits from UIView example a button, label, custom view etc.

Answer 2

This is how it worked for me. I adapted the answer of @flex_elektro_deimling

First parameter UIView.animateWithDuration is the total time of the animation (In my case I've set it to 0.5), you may set different values on the first and second (delay) to change the blinking speed.

    self.YOURLABEL.alpha = 0;
    UIView.animateWithDuration(
        0.5, 
        delay: 0.2, 
        options: UIViewAnimationOptions.Repeat | UIViewAnimationOptions.Autoreverse, animations: {
            self.YOURLABEL.alpha = 1
        },
        completion:nil)

Answer 3

Here is my solution in Swift 4.0 with extension for any UIVIew

extension UIView{
    func blink() {
        self.alpha = 0.2

        UIView.animate(withDuration: 1,
                                   delay: 0.0,
                                   options: [.curveLinear,
                                             .repeat,
                                             .autoreverse],
                                   animations: { self.alpha = 1.0 },
                                   completion: nil)   
    }
}

Answer 4

For Swift 3+, building on all the great answers here, I ended up with a few tweaks that gave me smooth blinking effect that automatically stops after a given number of cycles.

extension UIView {
    func blink(duration: Double=0.5, repeatCount: Int=2) {
        self.alpha = 0.0;
        UIView.animate(withDuration: duration,
            delay: 0.0,
            options: [.curveEaseInOut, .autoreverse, .repeat],
            animations: { [weak self] in
                UIView.setAnimationRepeatCount(Float(repeatCount) + 0.5)
                self?.alpha = 1.0
            }
        )
    }
}

Answer 5

A different approch but works. Blinking only for 3 seconds

extension UIView {
  func blink() {
    let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "opacity")
    animation.isRemovedOnCompletion = false
    animation.fromValue           = 1
    animation.toValue             = 0
    animation.duration            = 0.8
    animation.autoreverses        = true
    animation.repeatCount         = 3
    animation.beginTime           = CACurrentMediaTime() + 0.5
    self.layer.add(animation, forKey: nil)
    }
}

Answer 6

-(void) startBlinkingLabel:(UILabel *)label 
{
    label.alpha =1.0f;
    [UIView animateWithDuration:0.32
                          delay:0.0
                        options: UIViewAnimationOptionAutoreverse |UIViewAnimationOptionRepeat | UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut | UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction |UIViewAnimationOptionBeginFromCurrentState
                     animations:^{
                         label.alpha = 0.0f;
                     }
                     completion:^(BOOL finished){
                         if (finished) {

                         }
                     }];
}

-(void) stopBlinkingLabel:(UILabel *)label 
{
    // REMOVE ANIMATION
    [label.layer removeAnimationForKey:@"opacity"];
    label.alpha = 1.0f;
}