GSAP: Managing multiple tweens and timelines at once
<p>first things first, I am new to GSAP, so please bear with me. I try to give my best to describe what I am struggling with.</p>

<p>In order to animate an SVG file I started diving into GSAP. I created several Tweens for different elements within my SVG file.
Everything worked fine and ist animating as expected.</p>

<p>Since I have a lot of elements to animate within my SVG, I started adding TimelineLite to have more control about the whole thing.</p>

<p>At this point, my script file looked something like this:</p>

<p>First I declared all the elements I'd like to animate:</p>

<pre><code>this.phone = document.querySelector('#gsap-phone-svg');
this.body = document.querySelectorAll('.gsap-phone-body');
this.body.shadow = this.phone.querySelectorAll('.gsap-phone-body-shadow');
this.body.mask = this.phone.querySelectorAll('.gsap-phone-body-mask');
this.layer = this.phone.querySelectorAll('.gsap-phone-layer');
this.screen = this.phone.querySelectorAll('.gsap-phone-screen');
this.screen.clipPath = this.phone.querySelectorAll('.gsap-phone-screen-clipPath');
.
.
.
// many more following here
</code></pre>

<p>Than I created an Object to save my Tweens in:</p>

<pre><code>const tweens = {};

// creating tweens

tweens.body = TweenMax.to(this.body, this.animDur/2,{
y: this.maxExpand/6*-1,
ease: this.ease
});

.
.
.

// many more following here
</code></pre>

<p>At the end I added all my tweens to an temp array which I passed into a new TimelineLite() afterwards like so:</p>

<pre><code>const tl = new TimelineLite();
tl.add(tweensArray, 0, "start", 0.05);
</code></pre>

<p>Seems logic so far, I guess... Now here is the crux. You may have noticed or not that I have like more than 20 elements or so to animate. Thats why adding a tween for every element on its own becomes very confusing. Also I want the whole main timeline to be repetitive. The problem here is, that I want different easing for all my tweens on the "in-animation" than on the "out-animation", as well as I want to have no stagger on the "out-animation".</p>

<p>All these little cruxes made me think about an alternative solution to manage the creation of my tweens and timelines.</p>

<p>The most handy solution that came in my mind was to store all the information about my anim elements and timelines within an object:</p>

<pre><code>const animation = {
   settings : {
      duration: 1.5,
      expansion: 1,
      easeIn: Elastic.easeOut.config(1, 0.5),
      easeOut: Power2.easeInOut
   },
   timelines : {
      main : {
         delay : 0,
         paused : true,
         align : 'start',
         stagger : 0.05,
      },
      test : {
         delay: 0,
         paused : true,
         align : 'start',
         stagger : 0.5
      }
   },
   items : {
      phone : {
         id : '#gsap-phone-svg',
         start : { },
         end : { },
         timeline : 'test',
      },
      body : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-body',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y : -21,
         },
         timeline : 'test',
      },
      layer : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-layer',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y : -62.5,
         },
         timeline : 'main',
      },
      radar : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-radar',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y : -25,
         },
         timeline : 'main',
      },
      radarBase : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-radar-base',
         start: {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y: -16,
         },
         timeline : 'test',
      },
      ringOne : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-radar-ring-1',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y: -25,
         },
         timeline : 'test',
      },
      ringTwo : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-radar-ring-2',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y: -41,
         },
         timeline : 'main',
      },
      ringThree : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-radar-ring-3',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y: -62.5,
         },
         timeline : 'main',
      },
      cancel : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-cancel',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y: -50,
         },
         timeline : 'main',
      },
      submit : {
         class : '.gsap-phone-submit',
         start : {
            y : 0,
         },
         end : {
            y: -100,
         },
         timeline : 'main',
      }
   }
};
</code></pre>

<p>Than I wrote this "createTweens" method to return the GSAP Tweens</p>

<pre><code>/* create tweens */
function createTweens(anim){
   const el = anim.items;
   const settings = anim.settings;
   const duration = settings.duration;
   const easeIn = settings.easeIn;
   const easeOut = settings.easeOut;
   const tweensIn = [];
   const tweensOut = [];
   let tempTween = null;

   for (const key in el){
      const curEl = el[key];
      const selector = curEl.class || el[key].id;
      const startPoint = curEl.start || '';
      const endPoint = curEl.end || '';
      const timeline = curEl.timeline || '';
      const nodes = document.querySelectorAll(selector);

      nodes.forEach(object =&gt; {
         tweensIn.push(getTween(object, endPoint, duration, easeIn, `${timeline}-in`));
         tweensOut.push(getTween(object, startPoint, duration, easeOut, `${timeline}-out`));
      });
   }

   function getTween(tw, twValues, twDur, twEase, tl){
      const vars = twValues;
      vars.paused = false;
      vars.ease = twEase;
      tempTween = TweenMax.to(tw, twDur/2, vars);
      tempTween.data = {
         timelineName : tl
      };
      return tempTween;
   }

   return tweensIn.concat(tweensOut);
}
</code></pre>

<p>and another function to return the timelines:</p>

<pre><code>/* create timelines */
function createTimelines(anim, tweens){
   const el = anim.timelines;
   const timelines = {};
   // timelines.mainIn = new TimelineLite();
   // timelines.mainOut = new TimelineLite();
   const tweensForTimelines = {};

   for(const key in el){
      const delay = el[key].delay;
      const paused = el[key].paused;
      const align = el[key].align;
      const stagger = el[key].stagger;
      const vars = {};
      vars.paused = paused;

      timelines[`${key}-in`] = new TimelineLite(vars);
      timelines[`${key}-in`].delay = delay;
      timelines[`${key}-in`].align = align;
      timelines[`${key}-in`].stagger = stagger;

      timelines[`${key}-out`] = new TimelineLite(vars);
      timelines[`${key}-out`].delay = delay;
      timelines[`${key}-out`].align = align;
      timelines[`${key}-out`].stagger = stagger;

      tweensForTimelines[`${key}-in`] = [];
      tweensForTimelines[`${key}-out`] = [];
   }

   if(Object.keys(tweensForTimelines).length !== 0){
      for(let i = 0; i &lt; tweens.length; i++){
         const curTween = tweens[i];
         const tlTarget = curTween.data.timelineName;
         tweensForTimelines[tlTarget].push(curTween);
      }
   }


   for(const key in timelines){
      try{
         timelines[key].add(tweensForTimelines[key], timelines[key].delay, timelines[key].align, timelines[key].stagger);
         console.log(TweenMax.getTweensOf(timelines[key]));
         timelines[key].data = tweensForTimelines[key];
      } catch(e){

      }
   }

   return timelines;
}
</code></pre>

<p>If I execute the following code than, it would play my "main-in" timeline.</p>

<pre><code>const tweens = createTweens(animation);
const timelines = createTimelines(animation, tweens);
timelines['main-in'].play();
</code></pre>

<p>So far, this is actually working. But if I try to add the "main-in" timeline to a new timeline, its not working anymore.</p>

<pre><code>const anotherTimeline = new TimelineLite();
anotherTimeline.add(timelines['main-in']);
anotherTimeline.play();
</code></pre>

<p>In order to debug this, I tried </p>

<pre><code>TweenMax.getTweensOf(anotherTimeline);
</code></pre>

<p>but all this returns is an empty Array. Then I logged the same for my "main-in" timeline:</p>

<pre><code>console.log(TweenMax.getTweensOf(timelines['main-in'])); 
</code></pre>

<p>also returning an empty Array which is very confusing to me, since even though this timeline seems to be empty, it plays my "in-animation" on:</p>

<pre><code>timelines['main-in'].play()
</code></pre>

<p>I am really stuck here and would really appreciate some help from the more advanced users or simply anyone who has an idea for this. I hope you guys were able to follow me ... in case not, have a look at the codepen provided..</p>

<p>UPDATE: <a href="http://codepen.io/anon/pen/vyEvbJ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Click for Codepen DEMO</a></p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>