Ideas For Hype 5 Features…

Ah cool, thanks for pointing this out. It looks like there are commits that have been merged in from this branch.

I guess substepping is more viable with improved performance, but it still won't fix all passing through walls.

Well, the basic tip from the last post is substepping! Likewise, I don't think this will solve the problem, but may just help it out a bit (though I'm not actually clear why).

If I could add to this topic, here is my top features :

  • Better masking. Ability to use a layer as a mask or to draw a custom mask would be my no 1.
  • Library. Import and share, to be able to store symbols or elements (with a preview) that are used often and just drag/drop them on the scene. (I'm thinking for ad creation and brand assets here)
  • Applescript support. It's really hard to automate task right now and would be great if we could call hype to do stuff (I'm thinking replacing assets, creating symbols, bulk exporting with export scripts etc). Again, this is for automation purpose.
  • Assets swapping on stage. Being able to swap images or symbol on a timeline so it keeps the animation and everything else.
  • Performance. When duplicating the same symbol multiple times (ex: to create rain or particles effects) hype become really slow because it tries to play every instances of the symbol at the same time. It's fine when exporting, but working in the document is really difficult.
  • Plugins. I know it's a hard one, but being able to create and install plugins would be game changer. Other people could help level up Hype features.
  • Bones would be great, or anything to animate characters

I'm coming from a lot of years doing Flash, so i really miss those kind of features.

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Thanks for the feedback! One small note:

For symbols, note that you can import/export them via the Symbol menu, and therefore it is possible to build up a library in the Finder.

Added “Custom Loading Screen” as discussed here… Hidden Hype Settings… - #11 by Photics

Do you use the Hype “loading indicator”

  • No — Don't Need It
  • No — Don't Like It
  • Yes — I like it
  • Yes — But it could be better
0 voters

Yes i've tried that, but here is my concerns :

1- Diffucult to manage with a bigger team. That makes a lot of files that each person must have on their computer and manage. If we update the symbols, it's hard to make sure everybody has the right files.
2- There is no preview of the symbol in the finder, which make it harder to recognise what that symbol is.

I've made a plugin in Photoshop that allows us to manage assets easily and use them in our documents. There is a preview of each file and evety team is sync with this plugin, so everybody has the lastest version everytime. You can see an exemple here. It would be great to have that in hype, either built-in or a plugin system to make that kind of thing possible from someone else.

Screenshot 2024-04-16 at 14.47.47

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Code+Ai

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Agree, using <iframe> in the App to link hype-files published on the web as html, is for me the only solution for now to embed quizzes made in hype, and it comes with some limitations. A straightforward and built-in Advanced Export To App would be a top feature request.

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Although, if Progressive Web App exporting was strong…
would it be necessary to export to an app? :thinking:

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Maybe a ready template at the beginning, like how they do it in Microsoft office when you create a new file.

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There are lots of Hype Templates here… Template – Photics.com …but it is a good idea that Hype include some default templates. That's a big thing with Pixelmator. It's also a big thing with iWork. I recently used the dynamic backgrounds in a podcast / video — that was a bad idea for YouTube, but it looked cool. :smile:


So, Apple did their iPad event today. It's… eh… I'm not excited about it. I still don't have a good reason to buy a new iPad. However, as I was watching the event… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1J38FlDKxo …and I'm seeing other third-party apps being promoted.

WHY ISN'T TUMULT HYPE THERE?!

I see Apple making such a big thing out of turning an iPad into a video recording studio with multiple iPhones as cameras — that's not something I do. That's not something I'm even close to doing. If I needed to do something like that, I highly doubt I'd do it that way.

But, what if I could draw and animate on the iPad with Tumult Hype?!

That makes sense. That would help with game development, as I could create characters right in Hype. None of this clunky tablet style kludges, straight in Hype with Hype's vector tools!

When I see these other apps being promoted, I think… WHY ISN'T HYPE DOING THAT?!

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+100
Templas are a great idea but should be simple to understand and use.
To work they should also be downloadable from the site, I remember mockups from a few years ago.
This would be a big boost to spread the software!

That makes sense. That would help with game development, as I could create characters right in Hype. None of this clunky tablet style kludges, straight in Hype with Hype's vector tools!
When I see these other apps being promoted, I think… WHY ISN'T HYPE DOING THAT?!

Regarding iPad, the current version of the software is not designed only for basic users and before offering a tool on tablets, a different sharing and learning system should be built for basic users ( basic = no code, the most complicated thing he has to learn is "customer behavior").

You don't need the same app, but an app that does cool things easily with one finger, where you can share the project on your Mac ( and expand controls) . The rest comes over time, funded by development. Hype Desktop ( the current one) + Quick/Essential Hype (edit only timeline and limited options + IOS simulator). The right way to learn for a beginner, ( about 80% of the market)

Hype Reflect could expand its functions progressively, perhaps it is a more smart path to take?

I have been following the forum for years and I promote hype as much as I can in my work. In my opinion the market can grow much faster if development focuses on the basic user and this unfortunately involves choices that are contradictory to current software philosophy. :smiling_face_with_tear:

The mobile version must be a simple tool to get a huge number of people to play.
It must seem like a toy with free templates ready to download and use immediately, in less than 3 minutes from start.

Add templates designed for short animations on social media and the app will be successful. Any feature that makes an animation look great on a phone, physics, text effects, morphing, all together, the best of hype 4 merged in macros, template, symbols...
Choose and edit the template, text, effects, timing with one finger and then export a video in 3 minutes to the ipad camera roll or directly to your social network from the app, this should be the first user experience.

In addition to this, a nice online refresh of Tumultinc's image aimed at the new generations would be needed. The Templates distribution must pass through social media, to attract new Z-gen developers and new users, and paves the way for the marketplace! the next level for Hype Pro

Without these prerequisites the cost of development for another platform is high. Otherwise, pay Hype with a multi level subscription (based on support and access to new/pro api ) or raise prices but we have to compare ourselves with competitors.
Hype (maybe) doesn't need new features but just to be easier to use and offer a built-in space to share a lot fresh templates for all uses (really easy to use, fun social media themes) .

The requests for features that I read in the list could be financed in this way, undercover, in phase B :sunglasses:

My two Cents

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Thanks for your thoughts!

I will say, it has been interesting seeing shifts from 'blank canvas' types of tools, to ones where there's some midway of template usage and easy controls for basics (like tiktok, canva, etc.).

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I think the best way to handle this is with an in-app purchase. I know I could easily make a bunch of default Hype templates…

  • Banner Ads
  • Website Templates
  • Slideshows
  • Games
  • Presentations / Kiosk Mode

…and I was considering selling a bunch of Hype templates. The main reason I didn't is because the Hype app is the best storefront for that.

It's been almost five years since the last major update of Hype. If Tumult has been working on the next upgrade for all that time, that's a problem. An upgrade is what… $50?

A template pack could easily fetch $25. I probably could put together an awesome assortment of templates together in less than a year. Something like that could dramatically boost Tumult revenue. That's a big win… Tumult makes more money, while developers / designers can get a jumpstart on their next project.

…and a great strategy is to constantly update the library. There could be some free templates, while others would be part of the in-app purchase. This encourages people to check on the app, see what's new. I feel like too many people forgot that Hype is a great app. :smile:

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+1
If there is an option of uploading models directly from the app, the market would also expand to designers and the user base would change.
Hypedocks can be used as a reference, designers are few compared to programmers.
Even the possibility of remixing free templates would broaden its use by basic users, improving templates made by others (more skilled).

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I was working with automating the creation of a manifest.json file. I was wondering if I could use the color input to make selecting colors easier. So, I checked the caniuse website. That's when I saw something interesting… https://caniuse.com/input-color

It says…

Supported through WKWebView and Safari but not through UIWebView

So in Hype, this… <input type="color" id="color" name="color" value="#123456">

…looks like this…

…but in Safari it looks like this…

color-input-123456

So, I'm adding… “WKWebView — Upgrade Hype from UIWebView to WKWebView” the “Housekeeping” section.

Also, based on what @MarkHunte & @MaxZieb were discussing, adding “Improved Code Editing — Detachable tabs, sidebar view, something nice to make it easier to add HTML to elements and edit JavaScript Functions.” to the Housekeeping section… along with “Code Error Highlighting”.

Is it a UIWebView. ? ( I think you may be right though!)
From what I can see the color type has only just gone mainstream so maybe it's still using an older WKWebview.

It is a WebView which I guess operates under the same principle as a UIWebView -- in process rendering. WKWebViews render as a separate process but have far less functionality available than the macOS WebView class.

I can only guess this is a case of a webkit engineer being lazy. It isn't like color wells have any issues being in normal apps. So they probably hit some random issue and decided not to try to figure out a solution :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:.

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Is this good news for Hype?! :thinking:

Also, side note, I tried building a Pinball game with Hype. I had trouble with the flipper Physics though. The ball wouldn't pop off the flipper like in real pinball. This is a tricky thing to do in general though. I got discouraged, but this news seems encouraging. It's one of the oldest issues with Matter.js.


UPDATE

“Housekeeping” section was updated with new “SEO“ bulletpoint. Lazy Loading was moved to this new item. Perhaps this increases the importance of “Lighthouse” testing… and it further raises the question if Hype is suitable for building full websites.


ANOTHER UPDATE

I'm surprised! The support for Gamepad API looks pretty good…

Since Tumult is dropping IE support, this looks like it could be one of those epic new features. I can imagine the Hype 5 promo video now…

Easily manage controllers with Hype's new Gamepad API events.

Wow, that could be cool. Hype already has a Physics engine. With controller support, it's basically a game development environment for the web.

Here's a good article about the Gamepad API…

I still haven't figured out how to use it, but this is exciting!

Apparently, it can be used to detect button presses, but also with a value from zero to one, so perhaps this can be used for things like acceleration.

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“Shaders” was a missing feature mentioned in this thread.

While I wasn't totally unfamiliar with the technique, I wasn't seeing the significance in Hype. That was until I saw this video…

That's pretty cool. That does seem like something Hype should support… shaders, lighting effects, could make for fun animation.

I don't know how it could be done easily in Hype though. :smile:

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Here's another idea… what if a database could be added to a Hype project? :thinking:

Now you might think, “Mike, that's crazy. You'd need a database server like MySQL for something like that.”

…but do you really need that, especially if it's just a read-only setup? :thinking:

Here's an example…

JavaScript is being used to create a multidimensional array. That's how the questions and answers are organized. That works great, because there are only 50 questions. For much bigger sets of data, that technique uses a lot of memory.

That was discussed here… https://photics.com/widgets-3-0-the-heavy-lift/

Again, you might wonder, “But Mike, why would I use so much data in a Hype project?”

Well, if you were making an app, you could use Swift and SQlite to work with database. It's very powerful. So, with progressive web apps, could the same technology be used?

I'm not sure, but here's an interesting web page…

It uses vanilla JavaScript and WebAssembly to run sqlite3 running in a web browser.

This is theoretical, as I haven't tried it, but perhaps this idea could be used in Hype to expand the way the software works. Some potential scenarios, if you were making a video game (with lots of dialogue, characters, items, or tile management) that could be organized with a database. If you were working with large sets of data (such as a dictionary or zip codes) perhaps this technique might be useful.

Alternatively, I looked at IndexedDB as an alternative to SQLite. I'm not sure if it's such a good idea just to dump a large amount of data there, especially if that means duplicating the data since it was already downloaded as part of a PWA.

Perhaps I should do some experimentation, but that's the general idea.

What are features where someone would use Hype, rather than code the project manually? Well… creating powerful web apps with databases, whew! That's strong. It's even stronger if Hype could be used to manage (Import, Export, Add, Edit, Delete) the data before it is exported as part of a PWA.

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