(New) Wick Editor Alpha: Update v8.6!

[Luxapodular]

Hi Everyone,

Edit: Since releasing 1.0 version 8, we have made 4 revisions with feedback from our Newgrounds Game Jam participants!

We’ve just posted another major update to the Wick Editor Alpha. Check it out at alpha.wickeditor.com
We’ll be posting additional updates this week in preparation for the Wick Editor Newgrounds game jam!

New/Updated Features

• Super fast selection and undo/redo
• New Inspector scripting menu
• Updated in-editor coding API
• New export menu
• Projects are now saved more efficiently
  — 8.1
• Interactive Code Reference
  — 8.2 / 8.3
• Single-Tab Scripting System
• All objects now have default scripts
• Ability to add tweens to frames
• Ability to copy/paste frames
• Ability to rename layers from the inspector
• Code editor can now be toggled with the ’ ` ’ key
  — 8.4
• Object Cloning (Now in the Interactive reference, under Object)
• New Hotkeys for fill and text tools
• A major refactor / performance boost to projects with scripts.
• Tweens can ow change their easing type through the inspector
  — 8.5
• New Font Options including 160 new fonts!
  — 8.6
• Dynamic Text

Style Updates

• New canvas transform icons
• New tool settings icons and layouts
• Code tabs are now ordered according to type
  — 8.2 / 8.3
• Frames now display their names
  — 8.4
• Hotkeys for tools now appear in the toolbar
• Interactive tutorial now available through the Welcome Message
  — 8.5
• Inspector now displays different information for images, text and paths.
• Updated the asset styling to be simpler
• Added new icons for font assets

Bug Fixes

• Fixed several selection bugs
• Fixed bugs with code editor tabs not selecting properly
• Fixed bugs with timeline selection
• MANY, MANY MORE!
  — 8.1
• Opacity inputs no longer crash the editor
• Adding new layers no longer crashes the editor
• Several canvas crashes were fixed
  — 8.2 / 8.3
• Sounds can now be removed through the inspector
• General interface workflow improvements
  — 8.4
• Fixed a bug where the project settings and export modal didn’t show the correct information
• Fixed a bug where layers wouldn’t save their names between saves
• Fixed a bug where mixed selections couldn’t be turned into clips.
  — 8.5
• Fixed several bugs relating to dragging and dropping assets of different types.
• Fixed a bug where text edit boxes would render out of place.

We’d love to get your feedback, so please post it here!

[colorsCrimsonTears]

Sounds great!
Oh, is it possible to import projects made in
the live editor over to alpha yet? I’ve been making a
somewhat large scale project with the live editor, which is why I haven’t moved to
alpha yet.

[Fanta_Donut]

The new wick editor is great and all, but I don’t like how adjusting the size of something affects both sides, and how you can’t paste a copied image directly over where the original was… But, other than that, I’m enjoying it

[awc95014]

i’m a bit confused on how the tween works
in the beta, if you made a frame and extended it, made a keyframe, copied it, pasted at the end of the extended frame, then change the last, the middle would change. i think that was kinda painful for you to read.
but what i’m saying is that it seems that’s not how it works. you extend the frame and add 2 keyframes, but i can’t see how to tween. it says “easing type” when u click on the keyframe, but it won’t change the other one and no tweening happens when you change the last frame.
how does the tween work?

[kryptot7]

Aaaahhhh! I haven’t used Wick in a while and it’s grown so much! I’m honored that you took some of my suggestions
System: Firefox 67.0, Windows 10 1803 64-bit

• I like that the editor helps simplify and organize coding.
• The UI is good-looking, informative, and helps explain what’s going on. I also like that it’s designed to be mobile friendly, though I haven’t tested that.
• isKeyJustPressed - SQUEEEEEEEEEE! That will come in handy
• I appreciate that you can choose whether or not to select points and curves.

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UI Issues

• No “New” button
• Allow Ctrl-D to duplicate
• I think you should be able to edit text by clicking on a text box with the Text tool, and also by double-clicking it with the Cursor tool
• Allow Esc to traverse hierarchy backwards when editing inside clips
• The My Project link and gear icon do the same thing.
• What is Wick doing when it flashes with “Please wait…”?
• I preferred the tools layout the way it was before, listed vertically. It saves space. Then you can move Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, etc. up with the file menu.
• Do you really need “Make interactive” AND “Make animated?” Both buttons do both things. Would one button that says “Add animation or code” work better?
• There seems to be no way to delete layers.
  • It is unclear what the tab underneath the bottom layer does. It turns red, implying deletion, but it actually adds a layer. Consider adding a + sign, or better yet, replace this function with add and delete layer buttons next to the add keyframe button.
• “Add Keyframe” is a bit confusing, how about “Add Tween Keyframe”?
• You can’t delete scripts from within the script editor. Trying to do it from the inspector while it’s open will close it.
• Website does not reflect recent updates
• Cursor shortcut is traditionally V. C makes more sense, but it will conflict with people’s muscle memory.
• Editing colors on toolbar does not change the color of selected objects as one would expect it to. Only editing the colors in the inspector works.
• When creating a Tween, consider changing the layer name to the Clip’s name.
• Instead of warning, “There is no frame to draw onto”, create one.
• Only the first frame of animated Clips are represented on the stage when editing. (See example file) This is probably because it’s impossible to predict what the code applied to it will be. However, an option to make Clips act like Graphics in Flash (synced to main timeline, predictable) would be very helpful!

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Bugs

• Editing text objects lags occasionally. For example, Ctrl-A while editing text lagged the first time I used it.
• BUG FROM 8.0: I tried 8.0 on May 17th but didn’t have time to report this bug. When I duplicated a Clip with a script on it, and edited that duplicated script, the change spread to both Clips. Furthermore, Wick got confused about which object the script applied to. I deleted the second clip and just had one, but it didn’t help. Printing this.width in console returned undefined. Both bugs have thankfully been fixed.
  • Now, though, the duplicated Clip has the same name as the old one. This shouldn’t be allowed; what if another object tries to retrieve something like clipname.width?
• If, while playing the project, the frame switches so that a Clip is placed directly underneath the cursor, its mouseenter() or mousehover() will not fire. (See “Bugs” example project)
• Font weights and italics don’t display properly, they only add fake bold/italic effects to the base font. I sort of fixed this in my contributions to the old Wick, so you can look at some of the font loading code I changed.
• When playing project, sans-serif font turns into Times New Roman.
• [Chrome 74, Wacom CTL-460] Pressure sensitivity works OK with Windows Ink enabled in Wacom driver settings, but sometimes a stroke causes several yellow error messages. The next stroke works fine. Also, the size control widget is laggy and difficult to select.
  Not sure if pressure sensitivity works on Firefox.
• When editing a Clip’s timeline, navigating to a frame that doesn’t exist and double-clicking to exit the Clip will cause error “There is no frame to draw onto” rather than exiting the Clip.

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Top Feature Requests

• My biggest one is the ability to add Clips to the asset library and re-use them, having them sync automatically as you edit. Much of Flash’s animation and coding power is based on this concept. You can make something once, use it wherever, and easily edit it anytime!
• My #2 is the ability to choose how a clip plays and have it reflected while editing. It’s essential for cut-out animation and re-using drawn assets. Clips should be able to:
  • Optionally sync to the main timeline like Graphics do in Flash.
  • If that option is enabled, you can choose whether the clip loops or not, plays a single frame, or plays in reverse. This will determine which frame is shown on the stage while the user is editing.
  • Perhaps clips should ignore all play(), stop(), and goto…() functions when in this mode. Otherwise, they’re not completely predictable for animation, and the user might get a different result between previewing frames and playing them for real.
• My #3 is Object tagging, as described here. This can work similarly to Classes in ActionScript 2.0, where you can assign code and variables to a Clip automatically based on its class definition code. This is extremely helpful, and a great way to intelligently reuse code!
  
• #4: Save custom swatches.

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Other Feature Requests

• if (isPlayingInEditor) {} (as opposed to exported)
• clip.name
• currentFrame
• trace() equivalent
• Hold Alt to scale from side rather than center
• Pause Wick project to debug objects (view all of its variables).
• Edit multiple frames (like in Flash)
• Change layer opacity in the editor and in code. You can easily tweak effects, show/hide multiple elements, etc. By showing just one layer at a time, one frame at a time, you can have a 2-dimensional range of symbols to choose from.
  For example, make one single “Eyes” clip for every characters eyes. Have each character’s eyes on a different layer, in various states (angry, happy, etc.) For each character, hide all layers you don’t need. Then, if any character needs to, say, look angry, you can call eyes.gotoAndStop("angry");! This allows you to edit all the frames together to make sure every character has the same layout.
• Show onion skin on top of animation (this is really minor, but comes in handy if you’re animating a fist approaching the screen or something where the previous frames would cover up the old ones)

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Example Projects

Bugs.wick (77.4 KB)
Clip UI Issue.wick (9.6 KB)

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EDIT: Additional Stuff

• You also might want to consider having Wick warn you every 30 - 60 minutes to save a backup since it’s still in alpha. “Wow, you’ve been working hard on your project! Wick is still in alpha, so click here to save a backup.”
• Double-click to rename layer
• Click menu button on layer to select options, like delete
• Frame numbers are Times New Roman
• Inspector and Asset Library headings are in different fonts
• For frame actions, clicking stuff in the API should not autofill things like “this.y”
• Find and Replace
• Code reference has big, unwieldy scrollbars
  
• Scrollbar does not work in timeline. Also consider Shift+scrollbar or Space+drag to pan horizontally.
• Sometimes pressing Backspace (on Firefox, this is still the back button) makes Wick ask if I want to leave the page.

Keep up the good work, and thanks for making Wick!

[Luxapodular]

Hey @kryptot7! It’s so good to see you on the forum.

Thank you so much for the incredible feedback. As always, this was a superb report. @zrispo and I are already talking over a number of these changes. We think that a good number of the UI and smaller bug fixes can be done almost immediately.

The best news I think is that we have a pretty good number of the feature requests and fixes already listed on our to-do list. In particular, adding clips to the asset library, object tagging, and custom color palettes.

Also, we have a completely redone website we’ll be rolling out that will reflect all of the changes we’ve made. This will have all our new tutorials, updated examples, and some new community and supporter pages. We think you’ll like it, and should have a preview up shortly.

Thanks again so much for the feedback, we’re so excited to have you back around.

[kryptot7]

Awesome! I’m excited to see the updates

[FurryHedgehog]

I don’t understand how to use tweening

[ADMAAV]

same but i would like to uplaod my things to the people here how would i do that?

[Luxapodular]

Hey @ADMAAV, welcome to the forum! This is a very old thread. Would you mind posting your question in a new post?