Actions Inspector

Here’s a short wish list for new actions:

  • Visibility of object: Turn off, turn on. Could also have action control the opacity of an object
  • Jump to marker (needs the prior possibility of placing a marker on the timeline)
  • “Wait” command. for example: “Jump to … , wait 5 seconds, jump back”
  • History button (Jump to the scene from which you last came)
  • Start video, stop video.
  • Toggle buttons: sound on/off, video on/off
  • Conditional actions: (If… then … else …)
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Thanks for the feedback; great requests. A couple comments:

Is this request different than the current Visibility options in the Element Inspector?

Also note you can disable the element via the "eye" icon in the element list:

My general recommendation would be add a timeline action after 5 seconds that jumps to a different scene.

At this point it is probably going to be easier to use javascript with the Hype API.

This is the one I'd give my eye teeth for - markers on the Timeline that can be referenced by name.

Hi.
Thanks for the reply.
Regarding the visibility and opacity, the request is to have this
controllable as an action (on mouse click, roll over, etc.) and not as an
ordinary property. Like we used to have in Hyperscript and later in Lingo
(“set the visibility of member X to 0, set the visibility of member Y to
1”)
Yes, I know it can be achieved by Javascript, however not all users (myself
included) are proficient enough in javascript and the beauty of Hype is in
the ability to achieve so much without writing code.
Thanks all the same.
Moshe

The problem with this the way I see it if you add it for opacity then why not for other properties!

This could fast become over bloated. (IMHO :scream_cat:)

Agreed. No argument. Ultimately its a question of priorities.
Nevertheless, my past experience with the multimedia production world
(since 1988) showed that controlling the visibility of objects
interactively was one of the most common functions.
Anyway, we love hype, with or without this function.

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A compromise would probably be to add this to the current setElementProperty() method’s list of property names. That way you could use the API to control this. Therefore, not bloating the UI but giving the non-proficient Javascript users the ability to code it with relative ease in a function.

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The Hype way to do this is to create an timeline and start that. No coding required :slight_smile:.

While I understand it may be slightly indirect from the action in the UI, it can:

  • manipulate all properties (including opacity/visibility)
  • do so over any period of time
  • with any timing function you want
  • Use relative timelines which mean the element properties can animate from any value
  • allow multiple elements to change simultaneously

I don’t think we’d add a second place to do the same thing when this is the most flexible and powerful construct.

Although it means creating multiple timelines or being creative with the timeline if you wanted this to happen to more than one element at different times hiding/being visible or to create a toggle-like instance for one. It’s quite complicated to set up and understand for a first timer. By creating a function and using the setter method I would think it would be better suited. Just my opinion :wink:

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