I’ve just uploaded the latest 1.28 version of TimelineFX which is mainly a maintenance update that brings it up to speed with latest Mac OS release Mavericks. The the underlying GUI that it uses (wxWidgets) is now the latest version 3 which brings a few new fixes and features. Big thanks to Brucey who maintains wxWidgets for Blitzmax!
As well as the Mavericks fix, there’s a couple of new features mainly aimed at anyone who will use monkey to develop their games. I’ve added a new Export option to the file menu and tool-bar that exports the effects to a zip file. Now an EFF file is essentially a ZIP file anyway but the zip file TimelineFX exports ensures that it’s target friendly. For example, file names are automatically renamed so that they’re flash friendly – flash doesn’t seem to like spaces in file names. Plus TPA files (TimelineFX animation files) are re-saved as PNGs).
There was a few cosmetic changes, like the tool-bar got bigger icons, and as a result of that I’ve replaced them with newer icons, plus the splash screen as changed a little bit.
Next up for TimelineFX
The next update I plan on will finally have a very much over-due undo feature! I have had quite a few requests for this feature since release but I’ve never implemented it because I could never come to an agreement over exactly how I was going to do it. Thankfully though I’ve now come to a decision!
I’m essentially going to have a form of version control within TimelineFX, so that each effect will have its own history of ‘states’. I might have a new tab, or pop up window for each effect that has a list of all the latest changes so that you can revert to any previous state. I may limit the amount of changes it keeps, but the state changes will be saved in the effects file so you’ll never lose them, with an option to clear them out and also a export option to export without the state changes to reduce the file size when you want to use the effects file in your game. Of course if you only use TimelineFX as a sprite sheet generator this won’t be of concern.
I hope to have this implemented early in the new year and will keep you updated 🙂
