I've found an option in the project preferences to align the images to pixels, which I find really useful. However, what I find a little annoying is that it only aligns the object to pixels when you release the mouse. It would be more comfortable if it did this while dragging so you get more immediate feedback.

Maybe related to this, the "RestrictToUnitValue" option seems to not be applied when dragging new things into view, where I see fractional positions appear even at 100% zoom. Of course it's a minor issue since you usually move it afterwards anyway.

Please implement redo.

Gum allows you to reorder components, states, etc by using the alt + up/down keys. But this does not work with animations. You should be able to change the order of animations for convenience and organization.

Currently they're not highlighted so the user has to delete the contents. This is annoying as tab/edit is common for things like color values.

Using opacity during appear and disappear animations is very common, however it seems to be not possible to do this in Gum except with the visual primitives. There should probably be an alpha or opacity property on the Container that affects its children (recursively).

@bjorn said:

For initial setup, it would be very nice if you could drop items directly into their parent, rather than setting their parent later via the dropdown.

Of course, visual feedback will need to be given so that the user can pick a suitable drop location.

@bjorn says:

I'm missing explicit support for skins. For most use-cases, I may be able to put a child component at the bottom called "skin" and deal with that in my export script, but our skin system as well as that of Flex has a feature that is not available this way.

This is the ability to define the content area of a component, which affects the layout positions of its children as well as when the children get drawn in relation to other visual parts of the skin. So, you can have a skin that adds a border and decreases the area available for the children, or a skin that adds visuals both behind and in front of the children of the skinned component.

Sometimes you have a state multiple times in an animation or it may appear in multiple animations. But as the project evolves you realize you need one or more new variations on the existing state and replace the old state with the variation in multiple animations. Currently this requires positioning the new varied state identically to the old one, copying its properties, and then deleting the old state.

Instead, you should be able to click a state in an animation and swap it for another state without manually copying values, adding, and deleting states.

When starting to run the project in glue, on android for instance, get an exception thrown.

"The GumIDB must be initialized with a project file before loading any components/screens. Make sure you have a .gumx project file in your global content, or call StaticInitialize in code first."

If I go to GlobalContent.Generated.cs, I see a code block in Initialize:

if !REQUIRES_PRIMARY_THREAD_LOADING

        DebugFont = FlatRedBallServices.Load<FlatRedBall.Graphics.BitmapFont>(@"content/globalcontent/debugfont.fnt", ContentManagerName);
        FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb.StaticInitialize("content/gumproject/gumproject.gumx"); FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb.RegisterTypes();  FlatRedBall.Gui.GuiManager.BringsClickedWindowsToFront = false;
        #endif

If I remove the preprocessor directive so the code executes, the issue is resolved. I believe this block needs to be allowed to run for mobile.

title is self explanatory

I think this dropdown is supposed to allow you swap a state in an animation. However it is not picking up a new state I created by duplicating an existing state:

Pressing CTRL + C and CTRL + V should copy/paste a state within a state category - exactly the same behavior as duplicate but more intuitive and without right-clicking.

1. Add a gum scene file to a screen.
2. Create new object -> From File -> GumProject/Screens/TestScreen.gusx -> Source Name = "Entire File (GameplayRuntime)"
3. Execute application.
4. Error is thrown: Error 141 Cannot implicitly convert type 'FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb' to 'GameProject.GumRuntimes.GameplayRuntime' ...\Screens\TestScreen.Generated.cs
5. If on step 2, Source Name is changed to "Entire File (GumIdb)", the app seems to generate the same instance variable of type FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb. Maybe code is partially being generated for the wrong source file option?

Rectangular selection would make it easier to select a group of elements. When Shift is held, a click+drag should always trigger the rectangular selection (overriding the dragging behavior).

When adding an animation, the "name animation" dialog pops off the bottom of the screen (covered by taskbar) when Gum is in fullscreen mode. It should be fully visible.

Demo:

If you start to import components and then change your mind, gum imports them anyway but the tree view may not reflect this.

Repro steps:

1. Have component files somewhere on disk
2. Right-click component folder in Gum and choose "Import"
3. Choose your files on disk (not in the gum project folder)
4. Get notification from Gum with "okay" button only
5. Click the X on the cancel button
6. Components are imported anyway
7. Tree view may not immediately reflect component import

While following along with the intro tutorial, I added my first item to a screen. While I was dragging around the Text item, the cursor was a prohibited icon which made me think I couldn't place the item anywhere on the screen. When I gave up and released the mouse button, it added just fine, though.

I was kind of expecting some other icon when I was dragging over a valid drop area.

Most animation programs support onion-skinning - this allows the animator to see the previous frame while working on a new frame. Gum doesn't need to support full onion-skinning at this point but a very practical animation workflow is to duplicate a state and then adjust it. But it requires six inputs to duplicate a state with a new name:

1. Right click existing state
2. Left click Duplicate
3. Right click new state
4. Left click rename
5. Type new name
6. Press enter or click OK

In addition to being able to quickly copy/paste states, it should also be simpler to rename them. A newly duplicated/pasted state could automatically be focused for rename or at least allow double-clicking the name or pressing F2 to start a rename (the way File Explorer works)

Repro:

1. Create component
2. Add component to a screen
3. Flip component horizontally
4. X movement is reversed when dragging mouse

Gif:

If you edit a variable and right click on another component, the changes to the variable will be applied to the component you right clicked on and not the component you had selected when you changed the variable.

Popping the animation editor open and closed constantly is very time consuming. It does not remember size and position and the middle pane is always too small to read state names. So it must be adjusted every time it is opened. Additionally, if you have Gum fullscreened you must reposition the Gum window so you can see the animation while also manipulating timings and interpolations.

Most animation programs have the timeline at the bottom and the preview window above it. Gum already has a panel with tabs that include the texture coordinate selection window. The animation editor should be docked in this area as a tab by default. This enables the animator to quickly iterate on timings and interpolations and see the preview without wasting time in window management. The animation editor should also remember column widths.

It's hard to tell if files exist on disk and aren't in Gum. Gum should either:

• Work like Visual Studio in that you can view files that are on disk but not in your project
• Prompt you to add files on disk to your project upon project open
• Have some special window or dialog that shows you files on disk that are not in Gum

I had commit with 102 changed json files due to working a lot in gum. This really pollutes commits with a lot of changed file noise that makes it easy to miss important changes. I examined how this works and here is how I think it should be fixed:

1. Add an ExportedEventList model that is just a List<ExportedEvent>
2. Add public DateTime EventDate to the ExportedEvent model
3. Have the ExportEventFileManager load the ExportedEventList model and insert/delete records into it
4. You can do all the same stuff you are doing with date times but they will be in the ExportedEvent instead of the file

As far as I understand, this will work the same where Gum is concerned but instead of hundreds of created/deleted files there would just be one file that always lives but it's list contents will change. That may have hundreds of insertions and deletions but they will be on a single file in the commit instead of potentially hundreds.

Steps to repro:

• Create a container
• Put a sprite in the container
• Make the container flipped horizontally
• Attempt to drag or rotate the sprite

Expected behavior: Sprite drags/rotates normally
Actual behavior: X movement and rotation are reversed

I never saw this in Gum until just recently and I'm wondering if stuff you added from Glue made it start happening. This also happens in the animation editor and in Glue but it never happened in Gum until this morning:

I noticed you can create sub-folders by right-clicking on the Screens or Components tree view entries. Dragging a component or screen into a folder should move it there.

When starting to run the project in glue, on android for instance, get an exception thrown.

"The GumIDB must be initialized with a project file before loading any components/screens. Make sure you have a .gumx project file in your global content, or call StaticInitialize in code first."

If I go to GlobalContent.Generated.cs, I see a code block in Initialize:

if !REQUIRES_PRIMARY_THREAD_LOADING

        DebugFont = FlatRedBallServices.Load<FlatRedBall.Graphics.BitmapFont>(@"content/globalcontent/debugfont.fnt", ContentManagerName);
        FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb.StaticInitialize("content/gumproject/gumproject.gumx"); FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb.RegisterTypes();  FlatRedBall.Gui.GuiManager.BringsClickedWindowsToFront = false;
        #endif

If I remove the preprocessor directive so the code executes, the issue is resolved. I believe this block needs to be allowed to run for mobile.

Gum Output console is reacting to files that it should not know about. I was working in one project and copied that project files into a separate gum project and Gum reacted to the file changes.

Repro:

1. Have a gum project open (Project 1)
2. Have another gum project on disk (Project 2)
3. Manually copy/paste files from Project 1 to Project 2 in the windows file explorer, overwriting files with the same name in Project 2
4. Gum Output console reacts to that change

Screenshot:

Once I installed the gumplugin and restart Glue, it told me :
8:39:13 - Error trying to load plugins from directory: C:\Users\36011\AppData\Roaming\FRBDK\Plugins\gumplugin/
System.MissingMethodException: Cannot find method:“Void RenderingLibrary.IPositionedSizedObject.SetParentDirect(RenderingLibrary.IPositionedSizedObject)”
Therefore I found the plugin not installed correctly. I can't use it .

It's impossible to get states right on the first try for any non-trivial animation. The workflow is:

1. Rough out states
2. Rough out timings
3. Iterate on states, timings, and interpolations until correct.

This loop is currently very slow. Once the animation window is embedded in Gum, the user should be able to quickly swap between adjusting animation timings and tweaking states as one smooth workflow without breakages or consequences to their animation

It's possible to get Gum into a state where the entire Variables pane is blank. Here are the repro steps:

1. Create a container in either a screen or component (both seem to cause this but a screen definitely does)
2. Put items in the container
3. Select just the container and copy
4. Paste the container into the same screen or component
5. Variables pane goes away

The only way to recover the pane is to close and reopen Gum.

When starting to run the project in glue, on android for instance, get an exception thrown.

"The GumIDB must be initialized with a project file before loading any components/screens. Make sure you have a .gumx project file in your global content, or call StaticInitialize in code first."

If I go to GlobalContent.Generated.cs, I see a code block in Initialize:

if !REQUIRES_PRIMARY_THREAD_LOADING

        DebugFont = FlatRedBallServices.Load<FlatRedBall.Graphics.BitmapFont>(@"content/globalcontent/debugfont.fnt", ContentManagerName);
        FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb.StaticInitialize("content/gumproject/gumproject.gumx"); FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb.RegisterTypes();  FlatRedBall.Gui.GuiManager.BringsClickedWindowsToFront = false;
        #endif

If I remove the preprocessor directive so the code executes, the issue is resolved. I believe this block needs to be allowed to run for mobile.

Similar to supporting rotation (#3), it would be nice if components could be scaled.

Usually this would happen in X and Y direction by the same amount, so I think supporting X Scale and Y Scale separately may go a bit far. Yet, this would allow animations that would otherwise not be possible.

For some reason Gum is rendering fonts wrong in some cases.

If you don't set a specific state for the text you get a bad preview using some aliased font:

But if you specify a state (which in this case specifies a font size) you get the correct (non-aliased) font:

half size or less? They use up a lot of space needed by more critical information (the state names)

The Gum workflow for animation is inefficient. This is what the current workflow looks like:

1. Create states for a component
   • right click states to duplicate as copy/paste doesn't work
   • right click duplicated state again to rename
2. Open the animation editor window
   • resize animation editor to see state names because it's always too small
   • resize Gum to make room for the animation editor as a separate window
3. Add states and adjust timings and interpolations
4. Decide what edits need to be made to states after roughing in timings
5. Close animation editor window because you can't edit states while it's open or bad things happen
6. Repeat process

The constant right clicking to make states, constant opening and closing of editor, constant resizing of editor window, and need to perform these steps in a loop to fine tune animations has a lot of wasted steps. The following things would improve this workflow significantly:

• It should be possible to copy/paste states within a category
• Pressing F2 or double clicking a state should open rename dialog or rename in place
• The animation editor should be a tab within Gum like the Texture Coordinates tab
• Gum should allow you to edit states while working on an animation
• Gum should allow you to swap a state for a different state

1. Add a gum scene file to a screen.
2. Create new object -> From File -> GumProject/Screens/TestScreen.gusx -> Source Name = "Entire File (GameplayRuntime)"
3. Execute application.
4. Error is thrown: Error 141 Cannot implicitly convert type 'FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb' to 'GameProject.GumRuntimes.GameplayRuntime' ...\Screens\TestScreen.Generated.cs
5. If on step 2, Source Name is changed to "Entire File (GumIdb)", the app seems to generate the same instance variable of type FlatRedBall.Gum.GumIdb. Maybe code is partially being generated for the wrong source file option?

It seems to be currently not possible to rotate components or any of the standard elements. This would be useful in some cases and is required for some animations.

Gum offers no frame of reference for textures in the middle of a sprite sheet. This makes it hard to precisely frame a 16x16 sprite. The TextureCoordinates window should have a "Snap to Grid" checkbox with configurable grid dimensions.

@bjorn mentioned:

Currently the framerate of the editor is hardcoded on 30. For me this is too low since I want to see a more smooth response while editing. A first solution would be to make the framerate configurable (for example in the project settings, though "user settings" would be more suitable in this case).

Ideally though, the editor would anyway only repaint when necessary. Then, a framerate setting becomes unnecessary since there would be not a general "overhead" introduced by just having the editor open.

If a state explicitly sets a variable then that variable will change in an animation, but it will not interpolate if the other state in an animation does not explicitly set it. This should be called out in a tutorial as it's a pretty critical understanding when making animations.

There's a bug that I can't specifically repro but it goes something like this:

• Create a gum animation with several states
• Add a named event (maybe do this a couple of times)
• The named event will appear to be selected
• Change the value in the Time input
• Nothing happens
• Click off of the new named event and back onto it
• Change the value in the Time input
• The time value is applied to the named event
• Realize that the first value you entered was applied to some other state

This is a big problem because it messes up your carefully-timed animation but you may not realize it for awhile. Then you have to try to figure out which state got messed up and what it was supposed to be.

Repro steps:

• Create a container
• Put items (sprites or whatever) in the container
• Drag the container and drop it onto itself
• Gum clones the container items into the continer

Expected behavior: There's no way to cancel an accidental drag. Expectation is that I can cancel a drag by just "putting the item back" where it can from (releasing onto itself).
Actual behavior: Gum clones the entire object into itself as a duplicate. Since copy/paste exists there's no reason to have this duplication behavior.

I guess it's a measure to upgrade files to any new format changes, but this happens even when there are no changes to save. This behavior wreaks havoc with Perforce. Gum should only save when it makes sense.

It's confusing that the categories are not always in the same order. The order seems different depending on the context.

Clicking animations causes vertical jitter that messes with changing selection:

I'm trying to run the latest master in Visual Studio 2015, but I'm getting the following exception as soon as I place a Text or ColoredRectangle and select it:

System.Windows.Markup.XamlParseException occurred
  HResult=-2146233087
  LineNumber=20
  LinePosition=68
  Message='Initialization of 'Xceed.Wpf.Toolkit.ColorPicker' threw an exception.' Line number '20' and line position '68'.
  Source=PresentationFramework
  StackTrace:
       at System.Windows.Markup.WpfXamlLoader.Load(XamlReader xamlReader, IXamlObjectWriterFactory writerFactory, Boolean skipJournaledProperties, Object rootObject, XamlObjectWriterSettings settings, Uri baseUri)
       at System.Windows.Markup.WpfXamlLoader.LoadBaml(XamlReader xamlReader, Boolean skipJournaledProperties, Object rootObject, XamlAccessLevel accessLevel, Uri baseUri)
       at System.Windows.Markup.XamlReader.LoadBaml(Stream stream, ParserContext parserContext, Object parent, Boolean closeStream)
       at System.Windows.Application.LoadComponent(Object component, Uri resourceLocator)
       at Gum.Controls.DataUi.ColorDisplay.InitializeComponent() in D:\project\closingkit\trunk\tools\Gum\Gum\Gum\Controls\ColorDisplay.xaml:line 1
  InnerException: 
       HResult=-2146233088
       LineNumber=0
       LinePosition=0
       Message=Initialization of 'Xceed.Wpf.Toolkit.Core.VersionResourceDictionary' threw an exception.
       Source=System.Xaml
       StackTrace:
            at MS.Internal.Xaml.Runtime.ClrObjectRuntime.InitializationGuard(XamlType xamlType, Object obj, Boolean begin)
            at MS.Internal.Xaml.Runtime.PartialTrustTolerantRuntime.InitializationGuard(XamlType xamlType, Object obj, Boolean begin)
            at System.Xaml.XamlObjectWriter.Logic_EndInit(ObjectWriterContext ctx)
            at System.Xaml.XamlObjectWriter.WriteEndObject()
            at System.Xaml.XamlWriter.WriteNode(XamlReader reader)
            at System.Xaml.XamlServices.Transform(XamlReader xamlReader, XamlWriter xamlWriter, Boolean closeWriter)
            at System.Xaml.XamlServices.Transform(XamlReader xamlReader, XamlWriter xamlWriter)
            at System.Windows.SystemResources.ResourceDictionaries.LoadDictionary(Assembly assembly, String assemblyName, String resourceName, Boolean isTraceEnabled)
            at System.Windows.SystemResources.ResourceDictionaries.LoadThemedDictionary(Boolean isTraceEnabled)
            at System.Windows.SystemResources.FindDictionaryResource(Object key, Type typeKey, ResourceKey resourceKey, Boolean isTraceEnabled, Boolean allowDeferredResourceReference, Boolean mustReturnDeferredResourceReference, Boolean& canCache)
            at System.Windows.SystemResources.FindResourceInternal(Object key, Boolean allowDeferredResourceReference, Boolean mustReturnDeferredResourceReference)
            at System.Windows.StyleHelper.GetThemeStyle(FrameworkElement fe, FrameworkContentElement fce)
            at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.UpdateThemeStyleProperty()
            at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.OnInitialized(EventArgs e)
            at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.TryFireInitialized()
            at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.EndInit()
            at MS.Internal.Xaml.Runtime.ClrObjectRuntime.InitializationGuard(XamlType xamlType, Object obj, Boolean begin)
       InnerException: 
            HResult=-2146232800
            Message=Cannot locate resource 'xceed.wpf.toolkit;v2.3.0.0;themes/xceed.wpf.toolkit;v2.3.0.0;component/themes/aero/brushes_normalcolor.xaml'.
            Source=PresentationFramework
            StackTrace:
                 at MS.Internal.AppModel.ResourcePart.GetStreamCore(FileMode mode, FileAccess access)
                 at System.IO.Packaging.PackagePart.GetStream(FileMode mode, FileAccess access)
                 at System.IO.Packaging.PackWebResponse.CachedResponse.GetResponseStream()
                 at System.IO.Packaging.PackWebResponse.GetResponseStream()
                 at System.IO.Packaging.PackWebResponse.get_ContentType()
                 at MS.Internal.WpfWebRequestHelper.GetContentType(WebResponse response)
                 at MS.Internal.WpfWebRequestHelper.GetResponseStream(WebRequest request, ContentType& contentType)
                 at System.Windows.ResourceDictionary.set_Source(Uri value)
                 at Xceed.Wpf.Toolkit.Core.VersionResourceDictionary.System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize.EndInit()
                 at MS.Internal.Xaml.Runtime.ClrObjectRuntime.InitializationGuard(XamlType xamlType, Object obj, Boolean begin)
            InnerException: 

I realize it may be a problem with my setup somehow, but right now I have no idea why this is happening. Xceed seems to be missing the resource 'xceed.wpf.toolkit;v2.3.0.0;themes/xceed.wpf.toolkit;v2.3.0.0;component/themes/aero/brushes_normalcolor.xaml'.