Cues¶

What is a cue?¶

A cue is a marker on the timeline where the player pauses and waits for user input (e.g. a click or key press) before continuing. Cues let you build presentations where each slide or step is a separate "chapter" in one continuous animation.

Call cue() at any point in your scene to mark the current frame as a cue point:

with Scene():
    title = Text()
    title.span("Slide 1").font_size(32).bold().color("steelblue")
    title.align_x(0.5).align_y(0.5)
    cue()                          # player stops here

    # advance to the next state
    linear()
    adv_time(0.4)
    title.color("gray").font_size(24).align_y(0.2)

    body = Text()
    body.span("Content appears here").font_size(18).color("darkslateblue")
    body.align_x(0.5).align_y(0.5)
    body.fade_in(0.4)
    cue()                          # player stops here again

cue_at_start¶

By default every scene adds a cue at frame 0 (cue_at_start=True). This means the player waits for input before the animation begins. Pass cue_at_start=False to start playing immediately:

with Scene(cue_at_start=False):
    r = Rect().size(80, 80).color("tomato").align_x(0.5).align_y(0.5)
    r.fade_in(1)

Player behavior¶

In the interactive editor (opened with fairyflow open) the canvas auto-plays between cue points.

When you export to a stand-alone player (see Exports), the same behavior is preserved — the exported bundle plays and pauses at every cue point, making it suitable for use as a self-contained presentation.

Design patterns¶

Cue + transition¶

Combine cues with smooth transitions so content doesn't just pop in:

with Scene():
    r = Rect().size(100, 100).color("steelblue").align_x(0.5).align_y(0.5)
    cue()

    linear()
    adv_time(0.5)
    r.color("tomato").size(60, 60)
    cue()

    linear()
    adv_time(0.5)
    r.color("gold").size(140, 140)