Tutorial Interactive Button

Make a button that reacts to hover and click. You'll learn state machines, inputs, transitions and pointer listeners.

You'll need: the basics from Tutorial: Your First Animation.

1. Design the button

1. Create a new file (400 × 200).
2. Draw a rectangle (R), set its corner radius, and name it Button.
3. Add a label with the Text tool (T), for example "Click me".

2. Make three timelines

Switch to Animate (Tab) and create three timelines with New timeline:

Timeline	Content
Idle	Button at scale 1, normal color (a single key at frame 0 is enough)
Hover	Button at scale 1.05 and a lighter color
Press	Button at scale 0.95

Keep each one short (for example 0.2 s) and set them to One shot.

3. Add inputs

Open the state machine (the blank file already has State Machine 1, or use New state machine). In the Inputs tab, choose Add input:

• Boolean named hover
• Trigger named press

4. Build the graph

1. Choose Add state (or right-click the graph) three times, picking Idle, Hover and Press.
2. Drag from Entry to Idle to make the first transition.
3. Drag from Idle to Hover, select the new transition, and add the condition hover is true. Give it a Duration (for example 150 ms) to blend smoothly.
4. Drag from Hover to Idle with the condition hover is false.
5. Drag from Any State to Press with the condition press (the trigger fires once).
6. Drag from Press to Hover and turn on Exit time, so it returns after the press animation finishes.

5. Connect the pointer

In the Listeners tab choose Add listener three times:

Target	Event	Action
Button	Pointer Enter	hover → true
Button	Pointer Exit	hover → false
Button	Pointer Down	fire press

6. Test it

• Press Ctrl Enter (Run the state machine on the stage) and hover and click the button right in the editor. Inputs update live in the Inputs tab.
• Or open Preview (Ctrl P).

7. Use it in your app

Code panel (Alt C) › Embed shows code with your names filled in, for example for the web:

const rive = new Rive({
  src: '/button.riv',
  canvas: document.getElementById('canvas'),
  stateMachines: 'State Machine 1',
  autoplay: true,
});

Pointer listeners work automatically in every runtime. You can also drive hover and press from your own code.

What you learned

Concept	Where
Inputs (boolean, trigger, number)	State machine › Inputs
States and transitions with conditions	State machine graph
Exit time and blend duration	Transition properties
Pointer listeners	State machine › Listeners

Compare with the Interactive Button and Toggle Switch templates. For "follow the cursor" effects, see the OpenRive Logo template.