Create a new selection mode for timeline and color bar/palette #1498
Description
Mockup for v1.3
This new experimental option will be disabled by default, but the user will be able to opt-in from Edit > Preferences > Experimental > New timeline selection mode. In the future this will be the new default mode.
New Behavior
Should be like Windows File Explorer or macOS Finder:
- Click selects a layer, frame or cel (doesn't select or enable the range by default)
- Ctrl+click (or Command+click) picks one item (or deselects it), enabling the range (for multiple cels operations)
- Shift+click selects a range of cels from the active cel to the clicked one
- Drag, if we click the current cel, it starts a drag-and-drop operation of the cel (or the range), if we drag a non-selected cel, it start a scrubbing the layers/frames (e.g. so we can navigate frames/the animation dragging the mouse).
Old Selection Behavior
The current Aseprite v1.2 timeline mode.
Background
The timeline and the color bar work similarly as the sprite editor marquee tool (you can select several entries by just pressing the mouse button, dragging the mouse, and releasing the button). Anyway this behavior isn't expected for most users. We've received too many support requests just to know how to drag-and-drop layers, I think this link is the link that I've shared the most.
So a possible solution would be to provide an alternative selection mode (which might be the new default mode in a future) to select color bar entries and timeline layers/frames/cels:
- Click: selects the color bar entry or timeline layer/cel/frame
- Pressing button, drag-and-drop, releasing button: move color entries, layers/cels/frames
- Ctrl+ (or Cmd+) pressing button, drag-and-drop, releasing button: current behavior, i.e., selects several color bar entries, or timeline layers/cels/frames.
Notes:
- It would be nice to review the file selector to behave exactly like the native file selector on each platform (Ctrl, Shift, Command key, etc.)
- Indeed for a future mobile version, the current behavior makes more sense than this possible new behavior.