Allow unlimited nested library folders

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:52 pm

Mike (hope you're listening) this has GOT to be an easy one and I'll bet I'm not the only one who could use this.

If you're not going to completely shake things up library wise in 6.0 (and you might be planning that, so it will negate this request) could you PLEASE allow us to nest more than one sub folder in the library for import?

For the rest of you, if you add your own scenes to the library you can then easily import parts of them via the File/Import menu item (try it -- once you've set up your own characters, props and backgrounds that way you won't do it any other). However, you can only nest such items one subfolder deep. If you put them in another subfolder then you can see them okay but import doesn't work.

As long as you are only working on one set of shows/characters/whatever this isn't a big deal, but for those of us working on a lot of different stuff it makes it a PITA -- you can end up with a ton of subfolders in your library that kind of obviates the whole point of simplicity.

What I'd like to do is have my library like so:

NTL Show (one folder)
...Characters (sub folder of this)
......Main Characters
......Guest Stars
...Sets
...Props
Kelleytoon Follies (another folder)
...Characters (sub folder of this)
...etc.

and in the library what I would see would be the two main folders but I could "drill down" to the rest. As I said, right now you can do this, but you can't import past the first folder. There's really no excuse for the lack of that kind of iteration (since once you've set up the process then calling it recursively and "walking the tree" is dead solid simple).

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:45 pm

Good post. There's a guy here at work who does a bit of coding,
I'm going to tell him next time I run into him at the coffee
machine that I'm "recursively walking the tree" and when he
looks like he doesn't know what I'm talking about I'll get
huffy and storm off.

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:56 am

Actually, he may indeed understand (unless they are teaching programming quite differently than when I taught it. Which, come to think of it, was when dinosaurs ruled the earth so perhaps so :>).

Recursive programming is one of the coolest "tricks" out there and one most programmers learn in their second year (it looks like magic to the uninitiated). And, of course, "walking the tree" is done all the time with catalog type stuff (then again, I'm mostly a database programmer so I'm not sure what graphic types call it <g>).

But if you really want to befuddle and/or make him think you know programming, say to him something on the order of "boy, I'm sure having problems with my inductively-defined data set" and then walk away shaking your head. Even the coolest programmer on the block may stumble over this one.

(This is a data set that is itself defined recursively, or in terms of itself).

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:59 am

I tried that, he handed me a toilet plunger.

Rudiger · Post by **Rudiger** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:19 am

Yeah, love me some recursion! I've used it in a couple of AnimeStudio scripts for performing actions on the entire document and it works a treat.

It seems like AnimeStudio 5.6 is full of arbitrary restrictions like this, simply due to the fact that we devious users are coming up with ways to use the program that would have been impossible for Mike to predict. Here's hoping that this one is addressed in ver 6.0, along with the others.