animating text in keynote not in order

Question

I'm trying to animate some code snippet like this:

class Person { // 1

  func sayName() -> String { // 2
    some text here // 3
  } // 2

} // 1

Is it possible to animate text like this where the //1 come in at one time, then //2 come in the next animation, then //3 last?

The text is one object group and I tried the different animation options for Appear like Paragraph by group. It only goes from top to bottom. When I select Build Order, it does not let me drag the } from //1 with the first class Person { //1.

Can this be done without separate object groups for each part I want animated?

Answer 1

The short answer to your question is no, Keynote does not allow you to specify which order a line can be animated so that you would be able to achieve the effect you are going for.

Annoyingly, the way to achieve this effect is to have separate object groups for each part that you want to animate. The gif below was generated in Keynote but it used multiple objects, if this is the desired visualisation you want, you will have to create each object to animate them individually.