Post by Code Flame in Suggestions

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I worry that making user customization for highlighting every amount of frames would complicate the user experience for little gain.
The high-customizability option would be allowing the user to configure an offset and pattern-length (probably by intuitively dragging the cursor on the timeline while holding a key down).
The low-customizability option would be making the default highlight pattern mark every 2nd/4th/8th frames. This may work because most animation is done on twos.
I fear the high-customizability option may be seldom used, confuse people, and distract from the study by adding a new thing to think about.
I want to try the low-customizability option, but let me know if that does not fit your use case or if it would be weird.

I'm generally not a fan of user-customizable UIs; I believe that if a user desires customizing their UI, then the UI may just be poorly designed and should be made better for everyone. But then again, maybe it's just a fun form of expression for the user. Why do you desire to customize the colors? I'm curious if this is for expression, to solve a design problem, or another reason.

I do see the value of a scrollbar. So Animation Buddy can keep its minimalism, I could probably have it off by default and toggled by a hotkey.
Just to double check: are you aware you can zoom out with a configurable hotkey (Or I think Ctrl+Scroll wheel)? This eases the amount of work accomplished by the swiping motion.

Your post made me unrelatedly think I could easily make clicking on a frame toggle highlighting that frame in particular, so it would be easy to mark frames. That would be useful for quickly visually distinguishing a starting frame for a study (previously I was solely using the frame number).

Thank you for the suggestions.

Let me know your thoughts on my responses.

Sketchedout117 days ago(+1)

Hello! The low-customizability option would be great! I wanted to follow along Toniko's suggestion of referencing every fourth frame when studying a scene. It would make it easier to visualize and keep track of every 2nd/4th/8th frames, so I think this would be a really useful feature.

For the UI, I desired customized colors just as a fun form of expression. I do also think it would be nice to have slightly brighter color options instead of just purple but it isn't necessary to have.

I'm aware that I can also zoom out when viewing the timeline but I didn't consider it for making the swiping motion easier. Although, I still believe the scroll bar function would be a valuable feature to have to move around freely and also visually keep track of an area of frames (besides the timestamp and frame numbers). I'm not sure if either a scroll bar for the frames or a seeking bar for the video (like on a YouTube video) would be a better implementation of this idea. I also don't mind having the scroll bar off by default for the minimalistic feel.

I really like your idea of frame highlighting. That would be amazing to be able to keep track of specific frames for studying. Maybe it could also work well with a seeking bar that could also mark the highlighted area on it.

Thank you for your response!

Code Flame117 days ago(+1)

Here is what the the scrollbar, frame highlights, and new default frame pattern look like right now:

I'll consider adding user-customizable colors, test the update for bugs, and then it will be ready for release.

Sketchedout116 days ago(+1)

Looks great! Thank you for considering my suggestions. I appreciate your had work Code Flame.

Code Flame114 days ago(+1)

Awesome :) The update is now released, with user themes included. Holding "Ctrl" and "Shift" and holding click on a visual element should allow you to change its color, and this will save changes to a file automatically.

You should be able to access the download page from your Itch.io library or from the "You already own this; go to the download page" banner on the store page.

itch.io

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