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[thecolclough]

i'm currently working on a pretty big short-film project, almost entirely in anim8or, and i've got to the stage where i have dozens of objects, several figures and sequences, and 20 or 30 scenes - and my problem is that it's all in the file in no particular order.  basically i started by making the simplest things first, but i'd now like to be able to rearrange the order my objects appear in the 'Object' menu, so that all the bits of set are grouped together, all the props are grouped together, etc etc.  and in scene mode, i'd like to be able to put all the scenes in the order they appear in the movie.

now, i know it's possible to open up the .an8 file in a text editor and rearrange the code manually, but that's quite a formidable task in a project of this size.  it's also possible to do it with the 'Import' commands, but that takes ages, and is a pain in the neck.  so what i was thinking is, for each program mode (object, figure...) it'd be really great to have a 'manager' panel, where (for object mode, for example) you could rearrange the order of your objects, easily duplicate objects, and manage object importing/exporting - i was thinking it could be done as a list box thing, sort of like the 'List Items' box, but with some extra controls on the side to allow re-ordering and other stuff.  if this was implemented, then when you import objects from another file, you could use the same interface to present a list of all the objects in said file, and you just ticked a checkbox next to each one that you wanted to import, and then pressed an 'import all' button when you were done, rather than working through an endless list of message boxes.  you could also take the 'Delete Object' command out of the 'Edit' menu, and make it a part of the object manager, allowing you to delete multiple objects simultaneously if you so desired.  and maybe 'Object Settings' could be moved into the 'Object' menu and/or the manager as well?  i don't know about everyone else, but personally i don't think having it in the separate 'Settings' menu is the best of arrangements.

so your 'Object' menu would now look something like this:

New Object
Manage Objects
-----
object01
object02
object03
etc etc etc
-----
Object Settings

and the Object Manager would include the commands New, Import (always enabled), and Settings, Move Up, Move Down, Duplicate, Delete, Export (enabled when you have one or more objects selected)

...and then, a similar system for Figure, Sequence and Scene settings, which (i'd guess) would be able to share a lot of code with the Object one.

well, that's how i'd do it, what do the rest of you think?

and steve... any chance of implementation?

- colclough

[flametiger74]

That does sound pretty good. Yeah I've had that problem where I would be working on a couple minute long movie, and all the scenes are out of order.
This would be a bit interesting.

[Steve]

That is a nice idea.  Drop down menus can get very long to search when there are a lot of items on them.  I'll see if I can come up with a way to manage these and other resources (textures, materials, etc.) better.