Wick Editor 1.0 Alpha v0 Preview

Feature Suggestions Patch Feedback
#1

alphaReleaseBanner
alphaReleaseBanner.png1562×448 84.1 KB

Check it out live at alpha.wickeditor.com!

Hi Everyone!

Better late than never!

We’re excited to announce that we’ve posted a live demo of the new Wick Editor 1.0 Alpha!

This demo is designed to show off our new interface, tools, and engine’s speed. While it’s not full-featured, we hope that this is enough to show you what’s capable with the brand new Wick Engine! Have fun trying out the demo, and let us know what you think in this thread! We’ll be releasing major updates to the editor every two weeks, starting with our first on Friday November 2nd.

If you’re interested, here’s a bit more information on what makes Wick Editor 1.0 so different than the current version of the Wick Editor.

We’ve split all of the major components of the Wick Editor up into several different projects that are much easier to manage. We’ve also released them as independent, free and open-source libraries that we’ll be maintaining! You can see all of our work here (https://github.com/Wicklets).

The main projects are:

Wick Engine 1.0 (https://github.com/Wicklets/wick-editor)

  • The Wick Engine is the core of every interaction in the Wick Editor. @zrispo and I have Designed a new engine which is simpler, faster, and more robust than ever before (It’s MUCH less likely to break). The new design of the engine is also way more moddable than the original Wick Engine 0.0, making it very easy for us to add in features that didn’t exist in the previous engine, such as turning clips into assets in the asset library.

Wick Editor 1.0 (https://github.com/Wicklets/wick-editor-react)

  • While the engine handles all of the logic for how a Wick Project works, the Wick Editor is what you actually touch as a user of the tool! We’ve decided to work with React, which is a framework for developing high-quality web applications. React simplifies the process of including a lot of complex interactions, like drag-and-drop, displaying information, resizing windows, keeping track of what the user is doing, and much, much more. In short, this new editor design allows us to quickly iterate and test new features!

Animation Timeline (https://github.com/Wicklets/AnimationTimeline.js)

  • If you’ve used the Wick Editor for some time, you’ll definitely have run into problems with the timeline. @zrispo has completely rewritten the timeline in a way that makes it infinitely faster than before. While our old timeline could barely handle a few hundred frames, the new timeline cand handle hundreds of thousands of frames! It’s also been designed in such a way which allows it to be updated quickly and without much hassle!

Paper Js Drawing Tools (https://github.com/Wicklets/paper.js-drawing-tools)

  • The drawing tools in the Wick Editor have also gotten a serious upgrade. The new tools will allow for faster drawing and complex interactions like pressure-sensitivity. These tools also fix a whole host of bugs, such as the dreaded “the eraser can’t erase lines” bug!

We’ll be posting a full list of new features, and their status, by our next release on November 2nd.

Thanks for your support!

2 Likes
1.0 test hype thread
#2

when will update go live?

#3

Tested it a while back and this is very cool!
There was a humerous amount of coming soon popups though XD

It’s clearly early but already somehow feels less wonky (Despite tons of very visible bugs)

#4

@Elf_Ears, we have sooo much more coming to replace those pop ups! We wanted to put out much more, but unfortunately ran into a few snags. We’ll be updating this demo with a major push every 2 weeks until it’s ready to replace the live Wick Editor.

1 Like
#5

Nice to see we’ll have constrained drawing (squares from rectangles, circles from ellipses), but 1.0 is using the Alt key. I realize you’re committed to giving Wick its own look-and-feel, and there’s myriad ways to improve upon grandpa Flash, but it’d be nice to have some interaction consistent with what is found in many digital-asset authoring platforms rather that having to memorize Yet Another Shortcut Keytool Set. Any chance swapping this function over to the Shift key?

(Note: I am NOT suggesting making all over even most Shortcut Keys similar - like V for Select - only those that somewhat universal and frequently used for creating/editing art)

#6

Hey @Morf, we’re planning on making the hotkeys customizable, with some familiar presets. We’re likely going to have a Wick Editor, and a “Flash-like” preset in there.

Also, constrained drawing should default to shift in both, this will be changed!

#7

Cool. I’m a massive advocate for hotkeys but if it came down to what I’d kick off the Island first, I’ll take ease-of-drawing, -editing (or -whatever) over having hotkeys (though I know it’s not rocket science to implement).