Handles on instances

[David_Fine]

This is a wish. I wish that when you zoom out on the timeline, you did not lose the last instance handle. That is, the little square at the bottom right of the instance. Not on all of them, but on the last one only. That way, you could zoom out, grab the handle and quickly drag that instance to cover the whole timeline. Such a simple fix that would be very useful.

[D.T. Nethery]

This is a wish. I wish that when you zoom out on the timeline, you did not lose the last instance handle. That is, the little square at the bottom right of the instance. Not on all of them, but on the last one only. That way, you could zoom out, grab the handle and quickly drag that instance to cover the whole timeline. Such a simple fix that would be very useful.

+1 !

[thomasteraoka]

I like this idea a lot!

[Xavier]

This is a wish. I wish that when you zoom out on the timeline, you did not lose the last instance handle. That is, the little square at the bottom right of the instance. Not on all of them, but on the last one only. That way, you could zoom out, grab the handle and quickly drag that instance to cover the whole timeline. Such a simple fix that would be very useful.

It took me a bit of time to understand ^^
So why only on the last instance handle ? I'd rather tend to keep the handle on the first instance, the last instance and also to show it on the selected instance.

[Peter Wassink]

A good solution would be to have a roll-over effect where the handles scale up when the cursor glides over them.

UI-2.png (4.51 KiB) Viewed 18616 times

[wreckedlemon]

That's a great idea, it would help with my 15.6inch citiq pro scaling issue, but yeah if I've got a long peice then the disappearing handle is a little annoying.. I like using #1 scaling setting, but find the handle tricky to use.

[Paul Fierlinger]

This is an important topic because everyone struggles with these handles throughout the entire day and it has never been dealt with appropriate seriousness. I've been thinking about this good and practical idea with the enlarged handle at the tail of every layer (above). I expand the thought and ask, how difficult would it be to have any handle in any instance become temporarily enlarged whenever the pen tip or a mouse cursor makes contact and for as long as the handle is dragged. As soon as the pen tip is lifted, the handle would drop back to its minimum size.

This is not such an original idea of mine but something I have just picked up from my favorite NLE, MAGIX Vegas' recent upgrade version 18. All NLE's work with layers and frames similar to TVP's and the need to fix this nuisance has also become eminent. NLEs typically don't use sprocket hole type handles. Individual frames have to be grabbed by their edges and the problem of being able to grab the edge has traditionally been just as maddening. What they have done is to show a light blue square on all edges and as soon as the user makes a cut the square appears and one can make easy contact with that square as it has some sort of hidden magnifier built into itself that allows the user to make the grab with ease.

Sorry for this lengthy explanation but I found it necessary to make my case that this obviously can be done and it works wonderfully.

[Xavier]

Hi,
I've been working on this today.

Showing a bigger handle when hovering the timeline will be a bit complicated, I'm sorry (TVPaint 11 is an old application !)

However I was able to make the handles a little bit bigger, and I also had the idea to alternate the handle colors so that it's easier to distinguish the instances.

TVPaint_instance_handles.mp4

(749.34 KiB) Downloaded 813 times

[Paul Fierlinger]

It seems that you have managed to make them appear larger whether they actually are or not. To me this looks like an ideal solution given the circumstances. Can't wait to test this.

[D.T. Nethery]

That looks like it will be a helpful improvement . Thanks, Xavier !


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Just thought I'd mention that something about the encoding of the .mp4 file you uploaded does not let it open in Quicktime Player X (v 10.5) on Mac. I was able to view it using VLC , but on Mac the default video player is Quicktime X , so if a Mac user does not have an alternative video player like VLC installed, they can't view the .mp4 file.

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[Xavier]

This is a wish. I wish that when you zoom out on the timeline, you did not lose the last instance handle. That is, the little square at the bottom right of the instance. Not on all of them, but on the last one only. That way, you could zoom out, grab the handle and quickly drag that instance to cover the whole timeline. Such a simple fix that would be very useful.

I think that at a certain zoom level the handles still disappear. But I focused on the mouse hovering yesterday, it should at least be possible to do something with the current instance.

[NathanOtano]

Woud it be ok to have the handles be half the height instead of a square + being able to grab them from the side of the other instance even if it's not visible? Kinf of a half height both sides zone on each corner (maybe not both sides when zoomed out). On high resolutions it's pretty hard to grab them but I like my small menus
Same for the interface for transform, handles are too small for me and I dont want to scale the interface

[Xavier]

I think that at a certain zoom level the handles still disappear. But I focused on the mouse hovering yesterday, it should at least be possible to do something with the current instance.

Confirmed, there's a hardcoded zoom limit after which the handles are not displayed anymore. I reduced a bit this limit, and made the hande size a little bigger:

Capture d’écran_2021-08-26_12-27-01.png (19.95 KiB) Viewed 14688 times

I would need more time to understand and refactor the drag algorithm so that to show a unique, bigger, draggable handle on the current instance when the zoom out level is too high.
I'm sorry, I cannot afford to spend that much time on it for the moment : I must postpone this for the beginning of next year.

[NathanOtano]

It's a pretty good fix already! Thanks

[Joost]

I just started another post about this subject. Is nobody having the issues I am having with this new method? When trying to move a layer, it's now really easy to accidentally grab these squares, and removing frames while thinking you are moving a layer. I almost lost lots of animation by this new situation... Almost