lill' beta 4 bugs and my first impressions

[Manu]

I don't have much time to play around with release 5, so no lenghty bug reports. These area few very minor ones I found after half an hour playing around. I'm on OS X 10.3.5

First select a path, pick the move tool, now try to deselect the path by tapping the return button, it wont work. Move the path a bit, now you can deselect it using the return key.

The layer blending mode doesn't show in the pop-up menu until you select it, then it's visible, until you bring the properties window up again.

Come to think of it, why are there so many things in that property-window to begin with, I had hoped for Moho to go a bit more "modeless" in this release. is that something that can be done with Lua?

In 4.6 the top right pallette was context sensitive. Now the corresponding window only displays the style. 70% of the time the style window just sits there taking up screen space when I don't need it. All the other controls are now either hidden in drop down menu's where a lot of people will struggle to find them or they're cut-down, so when I select the camera move tool, I now only get the xyz-coordinates. I do find the choice to put so many of those controls in the display window weird anyway, the pop-up menu for the layer-controls belongs in mind on the layer window, the Play, Stop and Fast Forward buttons belong on the timeline window, and as I said, most of the controls that try to squeeze themselves on the top of the display window belong on an inspector window.

Deleting a keyframe used to be the Backspace, now it's ALT+Backspace. Why? It's my most used shortcut I hate to admit, please don't complicate it

Having said all that, I still think v5 rocks.

[GusM]

I fully agree respect the preferences-Style window, I do like better the 4.6 way, specially when working with bones. Your points about tne new dropdown menus are also true, I think your proposals makes sense.

Regards,
Gustavo Muñoz

[kdiddy13]

I totally agree about the style window. Although useful while using it, I really miss the dialogue window that had all the information on the selected object.

Having to select the individual tools (translate, rotate, scale, etc.) to get to each of those settings individually is a HUGE pain in the butt. While the style window is nice while working on the elements, I spend much more time actually animating a project than I do drawing the pieces. And keeping track of an objects TOTAL movement is as important (or more so) than the individual settings.

Please bring back the old window. Maybe even update it to include more keyable settings while you're at it.

[Lost Marble]

First select a path, pick the move tool, now try to deselect the path by tapping the return button, it wont work. Move the path a bit, now you can deselect it using the return key.

Fixed.

The layer blending mode doesn't show in the pop-up menu until you select it, then it's visible, until you bring the properties window up again.

The setting is not getting lost, it's just a visual update issue. Fixed.

Come to think of it, why are there so many things in that property-window to begin with, I had hoped for Moho to go a bit more "modeless" in this release. is that something that can be done with Lua?

The Layer Settings window mostly contains layer compositing effects (blur, opacity, shadow, motion blur, blending mode. Yes, there are a lot of options in that window, but I don't see them as being inconsistent with one another. This can't be changed with Lua - Lua is used to write tool and menu script, it can't be used to change the major interface elements of Moho.

In 4.6 the top right pallette was context sensitive...

There appear to be a lot of requests for this numerical window to come back. Maybe we can add this back - not for 5.0, but maybe 5.1. The reason it went away is because now that the scripts are written in Lua, we wanted to keep things as modular as possible. Previously, the context-sensitive window had to know about all kinds of different parameters and it was a messy design. Now, each Lua script only needs to know about it's specific area of expertise. The Translate Layer tool needs to know about translating a layer and setting up a UI for that (the controls at the top of the editing window are controlled totally by Lua). It doesn't know anything about layer rotation. Mixing the UI for layer rotation and translation together means mixing scripts together, or creating a separate "know-it-all" window.

The underlying design is just not as clean that way, but if the user interface is significantly better it may be worth it.

Deleting a keyframe used to be the Backspace, now it's ALT+Backspace. Why? It's my most used shortcut I hate to admit, please don't complicate it.

One of the big requests we've had was to allow drawing at any frame in the animation. If you can draw points at any frame, you need to be able to delete them. So, the backspace key deletes the selected points or bones, regardless of the current frame. In Moho 4.x, pressing backspace at frame 0 had a different meaning than pressing it at other frames. This just isn't possible anymore, so Alt+Backspace had to be introduced.

[kdiddy13]

There appear to be a lot of requests for this numerical window to come back. Maybe we can add this back - not for 5.0, but maybe 5.1.

I'll settle for that, fixing functionality first is an acceptable priority. I think one of the great benefits of using Moho and participating in this forum is that our requests, no matter how nutty at times, don't fall on deaf ears. Thanks.

[Manu]

Fixed.

Thanks. I wish I had more time to put some real pressure on Moho.

The Layer Settings window mostly contains layer compositing effects (blur, opacity, shadow, motion blur, blending mode. Yes, there are a lot of options in that window, but I don't see them as being inconsistent with one another. This can't be changed with Lua - Lua is used to write tool and menu script, it can't be used to change the major interface elements of Moho.

My main comment here was about the fact that those layer compositing effects are a bit far out of reach in that window, hence my suggestion for a context-sensitive window where now the style window is. As soon as you pick one of the tools that work on a layer, like the layer move tool, that context sensitive window could show the layer composite effects.

So it wouldn't be possible to write a Lua script that creates a window with a slider that changes the opacity of a layer?

...Alt+Backspace had to be introduced.

Aha, I thought it was something like that. I feel a request for user definable shortcuts/hotkeys coming your way.

[Lost Marble]

My main comment here was about the fact that those layer compositing effects are a bit far out of reach in that window, hence my suggestion for a context-sensitive window where now the style window is. As soon as you pick one of the tools that work on a layer, like the layer move tool, that context sensitive window could show the layer composite effects.

So, are you asking for a window that, when the Translate Layer tool is active, allows you to adjust the layer shadow? I know they're both properties of a layer, but that sounds weird to me. I can understand why you might want the old Info window back, but mixing layer compositing with layer translation probably isn't going to happen.

So it wouldn't be possible to write a Lua script that creates a window with a slider that changes the opacity of a layer?

A Lua tool script can customize the UI at the top of the editing window, and a menu script can create a custom dialog, but you can't write a Lua script that creates a persistent window that keeps doing its own thing, regardless of which tool is active.

I know a lot of answers to Lua questions are "no, you can't do that with Lua", but keep in mind that although this is Moho 5, it's basically version 1.0 for the Lua interface. As me move forward, the Lua interface will no doubt get more powerful and capable.

[kdiddy13]

So, are you asking for a window that, when the Translate Layer tool is active, allows you to adjust the layer shadow? I know they're both properties of a layer, but that sounds weird to me. I can understand why you might want the old Info window back, but mixing layer compositing with layer translation probably isn't going to happen.

Hmmm. Maybe a future, future version of Moho will let you key anything you can adjust? Keying depth of field would rock, but think about the possibilities of keying particle controls alone! Moho would be the most powerful vector animation program in THE WORLD!!! BUWAAAH HAA HAAA!

[Postality]

Moho would be the most powerful vector animation program in THE WORLD!!! BUWAAAH HAA HAAA!

Some of us already think moho is the best animation program in the world =P I've tried so many animation programs and they just have too much of a learning curve, and that whole draw every frame of animation method is old and tiresome, not to mention a HUGE time consumer. MoHo is the ONLY animation package that I've see that has a bone system. (aside from hard to learn 3D apps that is) but it's definately the only 2d anomation program with a bone system. which makes creating things very fun and easy. It's has a superior CLEAN layout so you don't get lost in a swirl pool of buttons, icons and options. It truely is a state of the art product. For young, old, pro or beginner.

I sound like I'm selling moho, LOL. I was an honor student in Business, retail and advertising. But honestly, I love this product.

[Manu]

So, are you asking for a window that, when the Translate Layer tool is active, allows you to adjust the layer shadow? I know they're both properties of a layer, but that sounds weird to me. I can understand why you might want the old Info window back, but mixing layer compositing with layer translation probably isn't going to happen.

And yet, that’s exactly what I’m saying. A lot of compositing apps work that way.

Or look at it from the other way, at the moment all the properties associated with a layer sit in two different places: half of it in the window that appears when you double-click a layer, the other half on top of the display window. They’re all properties that you may want to animate at a certain point: transforms, opacity… no reason to keep them in different places.

I understand that you may want to keep a certain separation between transforms and compositing, but for that you use tabs. The transforms are the ones you use the most, so you probably want to default to them.

Or maybe I'll just teach myself how to program since I seem to know everything better

[7feet]

To cover this, in a way and even though it would have to a tweak in the core code, is there any possibility of being able to keep a layers property window open and still be able to work with the tools? Losing the necessity to close that window to get back to work would, I think, somewhat cover this issue. At least, I would find it very handy at times. Just a thought.

--Brian