Hype and Hype Pro by Tumult are Mac OS X applications for creating keyframe-based HTML5 animations and interactive content which can be used on desktops, smartphones and iPads. Most of the time, one thinks of using Hype to create website interactivity. However, my goal is to create HTML5 widgets for my iBooks created in iBooks Author. As Hype has support for iBooks Author, I decided to give it a look.

As with most keyframe-based animation software, you build your animations in Hype using scenes and a Timeline. You can think of a scene as one view or page. The objects on the screen in the scene, such as text, shapes, buttons, images, HTML widgets and video, are called elements. To animate these elements you will change the values of each element's properties, such as position and rotation, using start and end keyframes along the Timeline.

Hype has most of the important features for creating animation, including easing, motion paths, symbols and behaviors and for creating interaction, including buttons, triggers and actions. It even has secondary, or nested, Timelines for creating self contained animations that will play on the main Timeline.

I really like the similarity of the Hype workspace with other Apple software, such as the familiar Inspector. In fact, Hype has many Inspectors, including the Document, Scene, Metrics, Element, Symbol, Text, Actions, Physics and Identity inspectors. You will find these all together on the right side of the workspace and can toggle between them using the icons at the top of the pane. One feature that I like is that the Inspector is docked on the right side and not a pop-up as needed pane. In iBooks Author, I find myself frequently moving the Inspector pane because it's in the way.

The workspace is similar to iBooks Author^R with the familiar Menubar and Toolbar at the top and the Scene List on the left. Also, as in Apple Motion^R, the Timeline and controls are under the Scene Area. The Timeline has a layered hierarchy and a Record feature for easily adding keyframes to the Timeline. However, if you are like me, you will like that you can manually create keyframes yourself.

To come back to my main goal of creating widgets for iBooks Author, Hype has some nice features. In the Typography Inspector, you can choose from a complete list of Fonts or just those for iOS devices. When setting options for your scene, Hype has four preset screen sizes for iBooks Author. When it's time to export, use Hype's Export as Dashboard/iBooks Author Widget.