Ali, it depends on how sophisticated you want it to become.
The simplest is to add a Glow Shadow and change the Blur, Transparency and Colour to suit.

You can also Clone your textbox or text line and for each Clone apply a different effect: displacement, feather, shadow, fill and transparency type.
You then Soft Group them all and as you amend the text all the effects follow.

I'll have a think about the second question when I find a suitable animated GIF.
I take it the GIF does it business when not Soft Grouped and is on the MouseOff layer?

Acorn