History of Lottie Interactivity
Lottie has supported interactivity in various forms for several years through third-party libraries and player APIs; however, a major leap in built-in, no-code interactivity came in August and September 2024 with new features from Lottielab and LottieFiles.
Timeline of Lottie InteractivityInitial Support (approx. 2018-2021): The core Lottie format, released by Airbnb in 2017, always allowed for some level of interactivity via custom code and external JavaScript libraries, such as the @lottiefiles/lottie-interactivity library first published around this time. Developers could add simple interactions like playing on click or hover.
dotLottie State Machines (September 2023): LottieFiles introduced support for state machines within the .lottie format (an open-source file format that bundles Lottie animations and resources) in their player's v2.4.0 release. This allowed for more complex, defined interactive scenarios bundled within a single file.
No-Code Editors and Native Interactivity (August-September 2024): This period marked a significant shift with the launch of user-friendly, no-code solutions:Lottielab Interactivity launched in August 2024, offering a design tool where users could build fully interactive animations with hovers, scrolls, and other events without writing code.
LottieFiles' Lottie Creator also introduced its own state machine editor around the same time, allowing designers to visually define complex interactions like hover effects and clicks.
In summary, while basic code-based interactivity has existed almost since Lottie's inception, robust, no-code, designer-friendly interactivity tools and standards have become widely available in the last one to two years.
#StateMachines