Timeline improvement requests

Discuss issues pertaining to the Creature Animation Editor here.
furrfire
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 4:33 am

Timeline improvement requests

Post by furrfire » Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:53 pm

Alrighty- very happy to see some of the improvements with the last few patches, and while testing out the latest one- it happened again...
what exactly happened?

ACCIDENTAL CLICKAGE OF THE TIMEZOOM BAR---
If you are scrubbing (dragging) through the animation down by the animation knots, and you let go of mouse 1, while your cursor is hovered over the animation ZOOM bar- guess what happens? It changes the zoom, to wherever your mouse pointer happens to be on that bar. :lol:
It happens frequently because often I am returning the timeline to frame 0 (all the way left) and guess where that zoom bar happens to be? Left, and slightly up. Soo, this problem happens to me at least once an hour as I hastily scrub through my animation to see how it's looking (yes I am clumsy) :mrgreen:


The time zoom bar should probably ignore the mouseclick when it was held down to scrub through the timeline or maybe some other solution like moving it far away and adding a new hotkey so holing control or shift, then using mousewheel while cursor is on the animation panel below- will make it zoom in and out of the timeline?



The next improvement I'd like to see is an old suggestion that was brought up here on the forums a while ago-
the timeline keeping the last used zoom level on load. Every time I load up an anim- the timeline is zoomed in too far. Another possible solution is to load up auto-zoomed so that the whole timeline of that particular animation is displayed (up to some maximum-minimum zoom perhaps). All I know is I never want it zoomed in as much as it currently does- so it's one of the first things I have to change every time I start working on something.



Neither of these requests are urgent, just some more QOL improvements I'd like to see to tame that timeline a little more.
Last edited by furrfire on Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:17 am, edited 2 times in total.

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by chong » Fri Nov 16, 2018 10:20 pm

Hello!

Both of those are good requests. I think I will look into a hotkey for timeline zooming, that is probably an easier way to solve your issues.
Also remembering the zoom level for the timeline is also possible, probably it will store it during a "Save" operation of your current project.

Thanks

furrfire
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 4:33 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by furrfire » Sat Nov 17, 2018 12:16 am

Yes the hotkey for zooming would be nice to have anyways- I still would like to see the timeline zoom bar ignore the mouse if I initiated a held click while not on it. Having the timeline zoom change unexpectedly is awkward.
Until today, indeed this whole time using this app, I thought it was a bug and didn't think too much of it until I asked myself "Why does this keep happening?"


I tried to duplicate this problem here on this forum, this post.

Holding left click to drag the page side bar up and down, then letting go of mouse 1 while hovering over a smiley face. It doesn't put a smiley face into my chat, and that's proper. Isn't that how it should work in creature too?


Interestingly enough I just tested in creature some more--
Clicking the TOP timeline bar (way up top- under help), and then holding mouse 1- then moving my cursor to the bottom timeline zoom bar and letting go... Guess what happens?
It does NOT change the zoom, it works correctly!
The same thing if I click anywhere except the bottom and side panels. From those 2 locations this problem exists. Oddly enough this only seems to effect the timeline zoom bar, and not anything else (that I've tested anyways). Letting go of a held mouse 1 over some other UI element doesn't register as a separate click, which is good.




So that's strange and variable behavior for the timeline zoom bar based on where the click hold is initiated from.
I hope my detailed report on this helps you out. ;)

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by chong » Sat Nov 17, 2018 12:59 am

Hello,

That is actually quite different, Creature uses a different set of widgets for UI compared to what you did so that does not quite apply.
In any case, adding a hotkey with mouse wheel scrolling is probably a better option.

furrfire
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 4:33 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by furrfire » Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:28 am

(zoom hotkey)-- Yeah that's certainly going to help and be appreciated.

I just find it odd that the timeline zoom bar is literally the only spot I can find in all of creature, where this fake click issue can even happen. No other spot of any of the creature UI does this. Indeed in any other spot- a dragged click that was initiated over some other ui element- will be properly ignored when released.
And of course it is in thee one spot where it's likely to be an issue in the first place- with unwanted zooms of the timeline as a result.




Ah well, not a big deal and thanks for your time as always Chong. I'll stop slacking off and get back to work on my animations. :mrgreen:

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by chong » Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:12 pm

An ALT + wheel scroll for zooming in/out will be available for the next upcoming update.

Thanks

furrfire
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 4:33 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by furrfire » Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:25 am

Sounds good.



While working today I found another thing I'd like to request. :geek:

The skin swap window.
When you have lots of skins setup (I have one with over 150) it can be a real pain to try and select a skin. The drop down list to change skins is really short, only listing 3 skins at a time- with a very tiny scroll bar to try and drag with. If you have lots of skins it's very cumbersome to use like this. And when using the mouse wheel to scroll through I find it actually skips over some entries- so I can only find them if I use the tiny scroll bar.

That drop down window should be much bigger yes?

chong
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:21 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by chong » Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:26 am

Yup, will increase the height of the popup menu for the SkinSwap for the next release as well.

Thanks

furrfire
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 4:33 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by furrfire » Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:54 am

You're welcome and thank you too!
This next update is going to be a big help. 8-)

furrfire
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 4:33 am

Re: Timeline improvement requests

Post by furrfire » Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:15 am

I feel like an awful person to bring this up again, especially with how many things you addressed, seriously you are like the best dev ever, so I am going to sound horribly spoiled or ungrateful. :oops:


Soo... here we go again... That TIMELINE ZOOM UI BAR is trolling me again.

Another common scenario in which I keep accidentally hitting the timeline zoom bar because of a very frequent action I take in creature-- copying the knots on frame 0 so I can paste them at the end of my animations to make it all loop nicely.
When you start from the bottom of the knots- dragging up to select em all, you are likely to end up letting go of mouse 1 while hovered over the timeline zoom bar... Oops... zoomed in again! this one gets me a lot, esp if I took a break from using creature for a while, because I forget it can happen (go from top down, not down up I tell myself!). The only ui element that registers a held then released mouseclick that wasn't initiated over it, is this one... why'd it have to be this one? It's in the perfect spot to be an issue for several very common actions too! :D

The zoom shortcut is nice, but I'd rarely even need to use it if this problem just didn't happen in the first place. So I hope this horrible and ungrateful, rotten brat post of mine helps sway you to reconsider taking another look at that ui element someday when you got lots of free time.

I know, I know... I am a quality of life\ui troll. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
I think I said this before already? but I am running out of big things to ask for, you fixed all the others, so it's only these little minor issues left. :lol:

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