Moho Animation Forum

I should explain a little more about what I'm doing: I'm setting up a Smart Bone Action that's animating the point positions for many small shapes, and I'm using Shapes Window to select which shapes/points I want to edit. Everything is fine when I'm selecting shapes and editing them in a frame, but Moho freezes when I scrub the timeline to check the motion. As mentioned above, I can usually recover Moho by closing Shapes Windows.

So far, I'm seeing this 'freeze' happen when scrubbing while inside the Smart Bone Action. I'm not sure yet if this also happens on the Mainline. TBD.

Keeping Shapes Window open isn't super critical to this task, but I wish I could keep it open while working on it.

Thank you for pointing me out to it, Denis. The download link should now be fixed (and yes, the last one is v0.4.2), although I'll have to wait untill tomorrow at least to can investigate about the issue you are facing, but I'm sure your detailed descriptions will help. I don't think I've stressed the usage of the script while editing actions so, yeah, that well may have something to do with it... So I'll try to reproduce it here taking into account all you said and let you know in any case. Greetings.

Thanks, Rai!

If I have time tomorrow, I can record a video of what I'm seeing here. Other than that, this version of Shapes Window is working well for me.

Just a quick note... Yep, I can see that scrubbing the timehead is a little more laggy here while the Shapes Window is open, although I'm not perceiving a real difference whether if I'm in Mainline or inside an Action/SB.

Playback is always OK though, but that's to be expected due to (unlike dragging) no updates are sent to this kind of dialogs during playback. Anyway (ideally at least), no lag should be produced for the mere fact of having the window open during scrubbing, at least unless at some point something forces the shape palette to be redrawn e.g. at reaching/passing an Animated shapes order keyframe? But I'm testing a file with more than 200 shapes being order-animated and, surprisingly, that doesn't seem to add any extra noticeable lag, which makes me suspect that for some reason the palette simply gets updated at frame change when it shouldn't; but to be honest, OTOH, if that were the case I'm also a bit surprised that the lag isn't greater...

Well, there are many, but now it seems I'd just need to find out which part of the script's update part could be causing that and hopefully find an easy fix for it, so I'll keep investigating... Thanks again for letting me know!

Well after some inquires, it turns out there doesn't seem to be a clear/unique culprit (as I kinda expected in order to can apply a quick fix), therefore I'm afraid it will have to remain as is until a more thorough review of that part of the code be possible, which is something I wanted to do at some point anyway and now with more reason, but it's quite a big part, so... Luckily, Shapes Window is more focused on design/construction tasks than animation, but of course I can see when it could be useful also on that field (e.g. for extra Animated shape order feedback, recoloring, or helping on selection as mentioned), so ideally it shouldn't add a noticeable lag. Plus, I haven't had the necessity of restarting Moho at any point here, I mean, as soon a the window is closed, scrubbing the timeline returns to normality, unless I'm missing something on that part, so any further feedback is always welcomed!

P.S. Oh, and I just tested it and there doesn't seem to be a difference with Moho 14.3

Thanks for looking into this, Rai!

Another related issue came up: after closing the window, and then reopening it, the interface might be redrawn incorrectly and become unreadable. I think this only occurs after using Shapes Window while scrubbing/animating, and experiencing the freeze.

I'll continue using Shapes Window without interacting with the Timeline; it seems to run fine this way.

Sorry, I don't have more complete info at this time; I'm busy finishing work on a big tutorial episode and trying to get it out in time for Christmas (well, before New Years anyway.) I'll resume testing afterward.

Hope you have a good holiday season!

Uhm... I'll keep an eye on that too, but it sounds to me related to everything said about improving the update part. Althouh in my case the most related thing to that I've got is a quick white flash upon opening the window and then everything is displayed and working as expected, but it may be a matter of stressing the frame changing more... Anyway, thanks for any further feedback, no matter when, in case you found something else and happy (busy) holidays too!

Hi Rai.

I was using Shapes Window 0.4.1 today and I found it was more crash-prone than I remembered version 0.3.0 being. That's when I learned the current release is 0.4.2, so I updated. I'm not sure if this release is less crashy yet, but it just crashed, and I'm thinking of switching back to 0.3.0.

(By 'crash', I mean it freezes Moho until I close the Shapes Window, and then I must quit Moho because it's become unstable.)

To switch versions, I created multiple Content folders, each with a different version of Shapes Window. This will allow me to compare the stability of each version more easily. I'll let you know which versions are actually more or less stable.

For now, I am wondering if you know the conditions that are likely to cause the crash with 0.4.2 and how I can avoid it. For example, are there any options I might try deactivating to improve stability? In version 0.3.0, the tool seemed more stable to me when Points Based Selection was disabled, but I don't see this option in 0.4.x.

Previously, I mentioned that Shapes Window was more likely to crash when I scrubbed the timeline to check point animation, but I'm not doing that today. (I'll do the point animation later, with the window closed.)

Thanks in advance for any helpful info or suggestions.

Hi Dennis,

I've not as much time as I'd like to maybe have a deeper look into it, but definitely you can still activate/deactivate Point-Based Selection by holding Alt key while pressing the Point-Based Selection button. Remember I changed to that in order to make the feature handier for "casual" uses and still be able to turn it on/off by the same button. Another thing you could try is unchecking the Advanced entry from the top-left menu just in case it makes a difference, although I think I already fixed all situations where Advanced extras could cause a crash, but who knows...

In any case, any info you can collect to throw some light about a possible cause would be very welcomed, since I think we are behind that freezes you mention long time now without being able to really have a way to reproduce them and I'd love to finally get a pattern... So I hope it somehow helps and I'm all ears to whatever you could find. Thank you!

Rai López wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 3:15 pm ...you can still activate/deactivate Point-Based Selection by holding Alt key while pressing the Point-Based Selection button...

Ah! Ok, I wanted to be sure it was indeed OFF, and not just on all the time now. Since this option isn't persistent until the Alt option is used, this likely isn't the cause.

...Another thing you could try is unchecking the Advanced entry...

Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes!

Hi Rai!

I switched off Advanced (Creation Controls), and then I made a whole bunch of shapes, and performed a lot of random Shapes Window-related actions while scrubbing on the timeline. After a couple of minutes of this, I'm not seeing the freezing.

This isn't a conclusive test by any means, but it's encouraging. I'll jump into my actual project shortly, work with it for real, and see how it goes.

So far, 4.2 seems more stable than the previous 4.x beta I was using. Tomorrow, I'll enable Advanced and see how that goes.

BTW, even though I downloaded using the 4.2 link from this forum topic, the About window says it's 4.1. However, when I check the code for the Menu script, it does say 4.2. Just thought you should know.

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 6:51 pm So far, 4.2 seems more stable than the previous 4.x beta I was using. Tomorrow, I'll enable Advanced and see how that goes.

Well good to know, thanks! Even if it's far to be conclusive yet... Anyway, at some point along the last releases, I fixed a crash issue having to do with direct viewport "Submode" selection with the Select Shape tool and it shouldn't cause problems anymore, but if for some reason it still does, disabling "Advance" mode ensures that part of the (kind of "delicate") code is not run and hence my suggestion. If we finally came to the conclusion that such feature is the culprit I might consider removing it, since now you can choose whether recoloring stroke or fill by dragging with left or right mouse button over the RGB/HSB numerical fields, not exactly the same functionality, but...

Greenlaw wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 6:51 pm BTW, even though I downloaded using the 4.2 link from this forum topic, the About window says it's 4.1. However, when I check the code for the Menu script, it does say 4.2. Just thought you should know.

Now that's weird! Are you sure you restarted/reloaded Moho after the update? I mean, I know you're familiar with all this, but maybe you thought you had done it and for some reason you hadn't or something? Because, unless I've missed something, I checked everything and I'd say it's all correct, and here the About window (as well as the Infobar when no vector layer is selected) shows 0.4.2 as expected

Hi Rai,

Here's what I'm seeing...



The files were downloaded from the 0.4.2 link on first page of this topic.

Should I use the download link on the GitHub page? I can try that this evening.

I just noticed the script build is also different. Very strange because the Menu script is what's in the current content folder, as are the other files.

Tonight, I'll delete all related script files and do a clean install. Will let you know if that changes anything.

Hmmm... There must be something misplaced then, because the code you show is indeed the last released, but the snapshoted window is definitely not the last version.

Since you said something about having several "Scripts" folders for applying one or another according to your needs, testing, or something so, couldn't it be that Moho is taking other than the one you think? Or maybe simply for some reason you have ended up with more than one "ls_shapes.lua"? There must be two actually, one in "CCF\Scripts\Tool\" and another (the one you show and that really matters) in "CCF\Scripts\Menu\- Lost Scripts\". But you shouldn't care about all that if you simply move/paste everything provided in one go as usual...

But to ensure that there is nothing else involved, in this case I'd just remove everything starting or having to do with "ls_shapes" (⚠ and of course any possible vestige[/b] of "ls_shapes_window") and would install again the one you downloaded, which has to be the correct one in base of the code you show. Well, hope it helps!