Digital Workshop

I wonder if anyone can offer any help on this one:

In a timeline, I need to change the colour of several polygon lines and text items at once.

I only seem to be able to change one line (or text item) at a time using the Attributes dialogue (making a separate action of each), thus cluttering up the time line.

What I was hoping to do was to have just one change Attributes action on the timeline which changed the colour of ALL the affected polylines and text items.

Is there a simple way of doing this?

Hi Chris,

Since you are using the Timeline, the "Simultaneous Action Group" is not available, but if you created a hidden object, you could use an On-Show trigger to access this option. You would then assign the "Simultaneous Action Group" for the polygon line colours.

Otherwise using script, you could use the fork() function on a Timeline, if you don't want to use separate lines on the Timeline grid.

Thanks, Steve.

The timeline is already fairly complex anyway, the polylines and text I refer to are already the subject of earlier Zoom and fade animations, and in their zoomed state I need them to change colour a few times.

(Incidentally, it would be so useful to actually be able to see zoomed items where, (and at the size) they end up - a subject of a post I put in the Wishlist!)

I can do it by individually placing Attribute actions on the timeline, but as I said earlier, it would be cluttered, and I was just looking for a way of doing them all in one fell swoop.

When I actually open the "Change Polygon Line colour" in the Timeline, all the available items are shown in a box, with a large box beneath (including horizontal scroll bars) into which I would expect to drag whichever elements I wanted changed - but it will only accept one.

Maybe DW could look into this anomaly? I can see no obvious reason why one shouldn't be able to apply a timeline attribute change to several things at once.

Maybe you could explain in words of one syllable for a non-script person the Fork() function?

Tnanks for your response, anyway.

I don't think it's related to the timeline.

The Attribute action does only does seem to be able to be applied to one object at a time anyway.

The actions are named Change Polygon Line Colour and Change Polygon Fill Colour, so these actions can be applied across multiple polygons, but not across multiple vector objects. If you want to change the attributes of multiple polygons using one action, you will need to ensure that they are all part of the same vector object. You can do this by dragging each of the polygons and polylines in the Organiser pane onto one of the vector objects. These should now all become part of the same vector object and you should be able to apply one attribute action to change all of the polygons.

Kind regards,

Robin,
Having all the polygons in one vector, are you able to perform routines like rotate,spin etc on each given polygon?
The Help file indicates

Polygon.SetFillColour("green")
Where Polygon is the actual polygon name hence provided on the page the polygons are named differently can routine the SetFillColour in an animation.

Can't seem to be able to run other routines like roll with same analogy

No - you can only apply animation actions to Objects, not individual Polygons. You would therefore need to keep the polygons in separate vector objects if you wish to animate them independently of each other.

In response to the original query, you could use a scripted 'for' loop to select the child polygon of each vector object, then change the fill colour of this polygon. I have attached a small example publication which demonstrates this.

Kind regards,

Thanks for your input, Robin - the notion of putting all the polylines into one polygon seems to be favourite for me on this occasion.

I did find a way around it - I put all the colour changes into separate timelines, and just had them start from within the original timeline. It worked, and I ended up with less clutter, but your idea is even better.

Thanks

Hi Chris,

I may have misinterpreted your initial question. I thought you were looking for a way to have just one trigger action on the Timeline and was not foreseeing you meant for all polygons to be the same colour at the one time.

Robin's response is definitely the best way! (move all appropriate polygons into one vector object).

The fork() function you asked about, works like the Simultaneous Actions Group, but via scripting.

With your comment on "Zoom items where" positioning, I am thinking you mean the scale animation. If so, you could you use the Disabled State in Appearances (perhaps only temporarily) just to align zoomed objects in the editor. (see attached example) -- sorry not trying to change topic here, but you mentioned it.


Robin --

You have a staggering 350+ posts!! Do they work like "Frequent Flyer" points!

Thanks Steve

Downloaded and run your example, but am completely stumped as regards Disabled State in Appearances or Effects! Can't find any reference to those items...

The problem I was having was lining up exactly one piece of text (or a graphic) once in their timeline zoomed states - in some cases it would be one item on top of another.

Rather than trying to faff around with location co-ordinates, it would be useful via onion skinning to see the final size and position of zoomed objects, with the ability to grab them and align them. When you have a zoom set up, you only see the pre-zoom location and size of the affected objects in the editor.

Hi Chris,

OK for example, say that you have a text object zoomed 200% (scale animation) and another at 200%... You want to see how they line up in the editor once zoomed.

In my example IMP, you will see that if you click the button, that both text objects scale up to 200%, and that they are aligned in the required position. To see the post-zoom effect in the editor (so you can co-ordinate and align them), go to the Text objects Properties Tab and look at the Appearance State.

Click on the "Disabled" Appearance State and select the "Effects tab".

Look at the "stretch" parameters (which is Scale) and you will see I have entered 200%. (zoom)

Now since you are viewing the "Disabled State" -- that is what will be reflected in the editor... so in affect you are seeing how the text object will look once zoomed.

I hope that clears up what I was intending to demonstrate. I was thinking to use the "Disabled State" as a little workaround for sake of previewing the post-effect that is applied. If the Disabled State is actually required a publication, once you have done your alignments, you can then cancel the temporary settings.

Aha, I think I see what you mean.

I doesn't seem work in my particular case, though.
I have a Frame containing various objects, and an "On Show" action which scales horizontally and vertically by 500% over 1 second, with an easing speed control.
I needed to see the complete frame (and contents) in its final position so that I could arrange other objects accordingly.
But I managed it by trial and error, in the end.

The use of the Disable function in your example had never occurred to me before, so I'll add it to the slowly growing arsenal of knowledge of this programme, and no doubt use it elsewhere.

Thanks again.

Hi again Chris,

You will be pleasantly surprised that if you use the temporary Disabled Appearance State zoom/stretch effect on a Frame, then all objects within the Frame will have the same scale effect. Even when creating objects outside of the Frame, once placed "into" the Frame, will suddenly resize also in the editor. This should help a lot!

OK. thats brilliant. Thanks for all your input, Steve - it's obviously worth experimenting further. There are so many tricks of the trade to get my head around!!