*UPDATED 3/1/19* Layer Shortcuts tool

[Greenlaw]

I took a minute to check it out and almost have it working.

I made a group called 'CharA' containing a child group with three layers, and gave the child group and layers a unique name.

Then I made a universal button setup outside of 'CharA'. Local was disabled. I set the child group with the layers as 'Top'. and made a Note button for the child group and each of the layers (3 buttons total.) This setup works as expected, the buttons correctly select the child group or layers.

Next I duplicated the parent group. I renamed only the parent group to 'CharB' which doesn't have a button associated to it. The nested group and layers have the same names as the ones in 'CharA'.

Now when I click the 'layer' buttons, it selects the correct layers for the selected character. Cool! However, if I click the child group button, the button selects only the child group inside 'CharA' and ignores the one in 'CharB'.

I'm not sure why it's doing this. I'll more time spend more time with this tonight but, off the top of your head, do you know if this is because I renamed the parent group of the duplicate to 'CharB' or is it because I didn't choose the appropriate group as 'Top'? (Currently it's set to the child group. Tonight I'm going to try setting the parent group as 'Top'.)

Again, no urgency...but thanks in advance for any info or ideas.

[Greenlaw]

Sorry, I need to re-check later which layer was set as Top. It's possible that I set the parent group as Top, not the child as described above, and maybe renaming the parent group broke something?

I'm just guessing. Don't have time to revisit this ATM.

[synthsin75]

It does throw an error here if I set a universal shortcut for the assigned Top layer.
v2.6 should fix that: https://sites.google.com/site/synthsin/ ... ects=0&d=1
Hopefully that will also fix what you're seeing.

Here's an example of multi-character universal shortcuts: http://www.filedropper.com/multicharacterexample

a and a 2 are non-universal, so you can navigate directly to each group from anywhere.
Layer 3 is set as the Top of its groups.

[Greenlaw]

Thank you, Wes! I'll check it out tonight.

Yesterday, I was recording a walk-through for how I used Layer Shortcuts on my latest character. It's still a work in progress so I'll be sure to include this new (to me) info. If you're interested, I'll send you a link to preview when the edit is a little farther along.

[Greenlaw]

Ok, I couldn't resist. I downloaded the files to my laptop and took a peek.

I can totally see how your setup will be useful if I have many characters in a scene, especially if they're duplicates.

Just to confirm, I also tried duplicating a 'character' before setting up the LS buttons, and then made identically named buttons for each character. This workflow works fine of course since we're dealing strictly with unique button and layer IDs regardless of what they're named.

Making the buttons twice for this example was no big deal but I can see the procedure getting tedious and more prone to user error with complicated character setups and many, many duplicates of the character. In this situation, your alternative method makes more sense and is a lot easier to set up.

So I'm really glad to have this option. Thanks again, Wes!

[synthsin75]

Yesterday, I was recording a walk-through for how I used Layer Shortcuts on my latest character. It's still a work in progress so I'll be sure to include this new (to me) info. If you're interested, I'll send you a link to preview when the edit is a little farther along.

Sure.

[Greenlaw]

Quick question regarding the Scope options Local and Universal: When these properties are enabled/disabled, are the properties assigned to a layer when the buttons are created? And can they be changed after the button is created? Just trying to understand how it's meant to work.

In one test I must have really goofed something up because the topmost 'charA' and charB buttons didn't work correctly--they each selected completely wrong layers. I wasn't able to fix the setup in the few minutes I gave myself but, when I get back to it, I'm wondering if I need to recreate these buttons from scratch making sure I have the correct Scope settings enabled for these groups.

[synthsin75]

Quick question regarding the Scope options Local and Universal: When these properties are enabled/disabled, are the properties assigned to a layer when the buttons are created? And can they be changed after the button is created? Just trying to understand how it's meant to work.

The Local checkbox only determines where the shortcut layers (note layers, etc.) are placed. You can always move the shortcut layers later, if you want, without it changing how they operate. The Local shortcut group has " (local)" added to its name, so even if moved out of a group, new non-Local shortcuts will not be added to it unless you first remove the " (local)".

The Universal checkbox does change how the shortcut operates, and that can't be readily changed by the user. So changing from Universal to non-Universal would require recreating the shortcut, as this sets a value in the layer's scriptdata.

In one test I must have really goofed something up because the topmost 'charA' and charB buttons didn't work correctly--they each selected completely wrong layers. I wasn't able to fix the setup in the few minutes I gave myself but, when I get back to it, I'm wondering if I need to recreate these buttons from scratch making sure I have the correct Scope settings enabled for these groups.

If you have a child layer of charA set as the top and made the charA shortcut Universal, then it likely didn't find a layer named charA in the current group and defaulted to toggling between the top and bottom layer of that group, when it doesn't find a valid shortcut. Same would be true of charB.

I would be apt to make charA and charB both non-Universal and the top of their groups (unless they are already top level layers).


ETA: You only really need to define Top layers if you need more separation than just top level layers in the document.

[Greenlaw]

Thanks for the explanations, Wes.

For anybody following this disccusion, I guess I understood how the Local option worked but Universal threw me off because it seemed I couldn't undo or fix whatever it was I did with it. In this case, the 'bad' button should probably be re-created with the correct settings then.

So, I think I know what happened in the 'broken' test now. Will tinker with that project tonight.

I'm looking forward to working more with Layer Shortcuts tonight.

[Greenlaw]

I got to spend a few more minutes with 2.6 this morning and it seems to work perfectly!

I'll try to finish that demo video this evening or sometime over the weekend. This project started out as simple walkthrough for my character setup but now it's officially turned into a Layer Shortcuts demo.

[synthsin75]

I'll try to finish that demo video this evening or sometime over the weekend. This project started out as simple walkthrough for my character setup but now it's officially turned into a Layer Shortcuts demo.

I appreciate that it will end up saving me from having to make one. Thanks.

[ernpchan]

Is there a EULA associated with this script? If not can one be created? Without one I can try this script out at work.

Thanks.

[Greenlaw]

Hey guys,

Here's a tutorial video I made for installing and using Wes' Layer Shortcuts script for Moho Pro. I hope you find it helpful in getting started with this incredibly useful tool.

Introduction To Layer Shortcuts

[amanandink]

great video Denis, really good to see it all in action

[Greenlaw]

Thanks Jeremy!

Yeah, I love having Layer Shortcuts available. The tool renders all the clunky workarounds I've been using to select/control deeply nested layers obsolete, and it helps me animate complicated projects more efficiently.

I hope the developers can work out something with Wes to integrate this useful tool natively.