Style Selection Problem!

[Hugging_Bear]

Hi Guys,

sorry - this might be another 'beginner' question but whenever I want to create a new shape and select the appropriate style (e.g. skin) the program ALWAYS gives me the last fill-color I had used and NOT the style I had selected. So, every time I have to select the Q-tool to correct the fill-color to the one I want. Quite annoying. Why is there a style option when it doesn't work?

Thousand thanks for your help in advance!

[Daxel]

Oh, yeah I think the style panel is pretty confusing for begginers, I had a hard time getting used to it. The key is to understand that it is like three panels or modes at the same time, and pay attention to which of these three modes are you actually working with at any moment, which is displayed at the top of the style panel: DEFAULT, SHAPE, and STYLE.

1. The DEFAULT style mode (for when you create new shapes): It acts like this if no shape is selected. And by shape, I mean shape, not the points of a shape (to select a shape you have to use the select shape tool). This is the style you wanted to change before creating your shape, but you probably changed one of the other two kind of styles below. You may have tried selecting a saved style but that will only open that saved style for you to edit it (that's the saved STYLE mode of this panel). What you wanted to edit was the DEFAULT style.

2. The selected SHAPE style mode: if you have a shape selected, the style panel will be all about that shape and will only affect that shape.

3. The saved STYLE mode: in the style panel, you can click on the Styles drop down menu to create new saved styles that you can reuse and apply to multiple shapes, and when you select a saved style the panel will be all about that saved style so you can edit it and it will affect every shape that has that style.


Don't forget checking the official user manual when you need to understand something, its usually the best:
https://lostmarble.net/Manuals/Moho%20U ... ual_HQ.pdf

[Hugging_Bear]

It's all well and good ... it's just not working for me .

[Greenlaw]

To make a custom Style the current default style, you need to select the custom style from either the Style 1 or Style 2 list. Whichever custom Style is selected here will override the current regular style and become the current default. If both Style 1 and Style 2 are set to <None>, then the regular Style options are used.

Also, you need to be in SHAPE or DEFAULTS mode to change the default Style. STYLE mode is only for editing a custom Style.

I think the confusing part for beginners is understanding that when editing a custom Style, the Style window is in STYLE mode, which is a different panel from SHAPE and DEFAULTS. If you're in STYLE mode, you need to switch the Style window back to SHAPE mode to edit the selected shape's style. Note that the current panel mode is indicated by the text STYLE, SHAPE, or DEFAULTS near the top of the Style window.

Here's how to switch panel modes.

To enter STYLE mode, select New from the Style menu, or select any existing custom Styles you wish to edit. Now you're editing a custom Style and only this Style.

There are a few ways to exit STYLE mode. Here are three methods...

• Under the Shapes menu, choose <None>. The Style window mode will now state DEFAULTS (for new shapes).
• Select one of the listed shapes from the menu. Now you're in SHAPE mode and you'll be able to edit the current style and this will also become the new Defaults.
• Select a shape in the Workspace using the Select Shape tool. This also puts you into SHAPE mode, it's just another way to select a shape.

Hope this helps. I can go on and on about custom Styles but I think the above should clear up the most confusing part.

[Hoptoad]

I used to have problems with Styles fairly often. Eventually I learned 2 things.

1. It is always user error. (That's a good thing because it means the problem can be fixed.)
2. Most of the time (at least for me), the problem is one of the fill or stroke checkboxes being checked by mistake, or being unchecked by mistake. Checkboxes make it possible to turn OFF the fill/stroke of a Style for a shape.

Good luck.

[Greenlaw]

When you're ready for something more advanced, try experimenting with combining Style 1 and Style 2, and also the checkboxes mentioned by Hoptoad.

How does this work? Think of Style 1 and Style 2 as layers but for styles. So, if you set up a 'regular' style (the base layer), the custom style in Style 1 (a second layer) will override the properties of the 'regular' style, and the custom style in Style 2 (a third layer) will override both. A neat trick is understanding that only the active properties will override the same property in a lower style. If you're clever about it, this can be a very powerful feature.

Here's one example: Let's say I want to be able to globally change a character's stroke width to thinner or thicker lines depending on how close they are to the camera, but the character has many shapes and it would be cumbersome to change the line width for every shape individually. But if I create a custom Style that affects only the line weight and nothing else (this is where the checkmarks come in,) and I add this custom Style into every shape, I'll be able to change the line width for the entire character by changing only the one custom 'line width only' style. This can be a very convenient option in productions where I need it.

Note that property checkboxes exist for both 'regular' and 'custom' styles, so the layering possibilities are almost limitless.

Have fun!

[mmmaarten]

It's all well and good ... it's just not working for me .

I have the same thing. I am still searching for but struggling to see any benefits of the way the style panel works now. I might miss something, but so far it feels very unintuitive to me and just setting a color takes longer than needed.

For instance; When creating a shape I would expect that material to be selected in the style panel to change directly. Not some default style and not needing to select the already selected shape with another tool. But instead as I understand it we need to:
1) select the select shapes tool
2) select the shape
3) change style
4) switch back to what we were doing
or
search for the shape from the shapes dropdown which all have unrecognisable names by default. Sometimes a list of a hundred items. And change the style.
This makes this simple task very time consuming and overly complicated IMO. Which could be a choice when there are huge benefits to it, but so far I haven't see these benefits, so I really wonder what these are.

What I would expect:
1) Select a draw tool
2) Draw the shape -> the style panel changes directly to the new shape's style
3) We can directly set a fill, stroke etc. for the shape we are drawing

I try to understand; why isn't it build as other applications where we could just change the color on the newly created shape / shape we're working on directly? There must be a huge benefit in making the UI more complicated and time consuming. But what is it?

It would really help if there was a content sensitive 'automatic selection' mode where the style panel would always show the style of the currently selected item to directly edit it.

[Daxel]

What I would expect:
1) Select a draw tool
2) Draw the shape -> the style panel changes directly to the new shape's style
3) We can directly set a fill, stroke etc. for the shape we are drawing

But that is how it works haha.

When you hit the create shape button, the new shape will have the latest DEFAULT style, and the shape will be automatically selected, which makes the style panel automatically change to the SHAPE mode with the name of the slected shape, meaning that if you go to the fill color and change it, you will be changing the shape's fill color.

And I'm seeing that doing that (editing the SHAPE style) makes that style the new default, so the next shape you create will automatically have the same style as the previous one.

I recomend you both to upload a video so we can understand what the problem is. Or an image at least.

Edit: don't forget to have Advanced checked so you can see the saved styles applied to your style, that may be confusing you because if you have a style applied to your shape, changing the fill color of the shape won't do anything, the fill color will still be determined by the applied saved style (unless you force the fill color of the shape checking the box at the right of the color, only visible in advanced mode).

[Hugging_Bear]

I think, I found out what the problem is. After selecting the desired style I close the style-panel to have a better view upon my layer-panel (it's supposed to be only a visible aid, isn't it?). But whenever I do this, the program gives me automatically the LAST selected style - NOT the current one. When I leave the style-panel open/visible, this does NOT happen!
I find it an OUTRAGE that the program forces me to clutter my working surface with panels I don't need to look at, at this particular moment.
The whole style-function is poorly designed, because visible clues about editing, saving, and applying are missing. The user has no clues about what the consequences his/her action will have. One can only pray to the God of Animation and hope that the program will do what it is supposed to do!

[Daxel]

I think, I found out what the problem is. After selecting the desired style I close the style-panel to have a better view upon my layer-panel (it's supposed to be only a visible aid, isn't it?). But whenever I do this, the program gives me automatically the LAST selected style - NOT the current one.

I can't reproduce that behaviour here. I edit the default style, then close the style panel, then I create a shape and I get the edited default style as expected.

I made some test and the only difference that I noticed between having the panel open/closed is that editing a shape's style doesn't modify the default style if the panel is closed, as it happens when it's open. But that doesn't seem to be your problem. I can only guess you edited the previous selected shape style and not the default style, but maybe I'm missing something. Have patience, learning something new is always confusing, and even if I think Moho has a lot to improve UX wise, the style panel doesn't work how you think it works right now.

Until I can see a video or images of what you guys are seeing, I have to give up.

[Hugging_Bear]

Hi guys,
I recorded this video to demonstrate my problem - even with the style-panel open. https://youtu.be/z68wTAGpARA
Please comment about what I do wrong!
Thanks!

[Daxel]

Hi guys,
I recorded this video to demonstrate my problem - even with the style-panel open. https://youtu.be/z68wTAGpARA
Please comment about what I do wrong!
Thanks!

You are on the STYLE mode, because on the panel, right below the Shapes and the Styles selections buttons, you can read STYLE. That means you are editing a saved style, specifically "Skin", as you can read right below "Name: Skin".

But what you want to modify is not the skin or any other saved style, you want to modify the default style. To exit the saved STYLE edition mode, click on Styles and select "none" or "nothing" or whatever the english word is, and you will put the style panel in DEFAULT mode again.

When new users want to apply a saved style, and this happened to me too, we intuitively select the saved style before creating the shape and that's what you are doing, but that opens the saved style edition mode. To apply a saved style we don't have to select the saved style on the top Styles button, we have to edit the DEFAULT style so it has the saved style applied, and we do that first putting the style panel in DEFAULT mode like I said at the beggining, and then clicking on the Style 1 or Style 2 buttons that say <None> right bellow the Round caps checkmark option.

[mmmaarten]

Hi guys,
I recorded this video to demonstrate my problem - even with the style-panel open. https://youtu.be/z68wTAGpARA
Please comment about what I do wrong!
Thanks!

Although I wouldn't use the words you used and I kind of think I understand how the styles panel is meant to work and I manage to use it, I recognize the frustration you're having. Not just as a beginner on Moho, but also from 25 years of experience of developing software and interfaces myself and using different graphical and animation tools (also for broadcast). To me it doesn't make much sense so far why it's build this way either. It feels overly complex for what it needs to do.
I get the feeling it's built this complex to have something like global materials to use everywhere, but even than it still could've been built way easier and more intuitive than this and not making every usage needing too many clicks and thinking. Even 3d modeling software like blender make using global materials and -slots way more intuitive and quick to use. Also for beginners; once you understand materials it makes sense. In Moho I cannot get used to this because it feels unnecesary complicated / too many actions to do a simple thing.

But that is how it works haha.

Of course it is, as I was describing the way it works, haha But IMO it's way to many actions to just change the style of a shape, especially when already known to be selected. Why do we need to use a 'shape select'-tool if we just drawn the shape and Moho might expect us to change the style directly after that / knows what is selected? As that's IMO the most logical thing to do after drawing a shape. It might be made for some special workflow, but it's not my workflow and I wonder what that workflow might be and what benefits there are to it.

Again, I think it would be a lot easier if the shape automatically gets selected when editing it. So we don't need to select a shape, nor a style, and can easily directly change the fill and/or stroke etc.

The moment somebody needs to explain that there are modes and when these are active or not for something simple as setting a style already gives away IMO that the interface is not that intuitive on this point. I think it should be obvious how to use it for people being familiar with other graphical software, OR it should have real strong benefits in why it is created this complex. I am open to what these benefits are, but I don't see any of them.

I have the feeling that there's too much priority on having a default style and there's too much of an assumption we know what style to use before we start 'drawing''. While in reality, at least in my workflow in vector-oriented programs, I pretty much always change/adjust the style only directly after drawing. Or even later. I think the steps to choose the select shape tool, than change the style, than switch back to another tool shouldn't be necesary and I would expect this to go automatically.
Sure there might be situations (like multi selection) where this isn't possible, but creating UI based on exceptions wouldn't be my idea. I would create the fastest way to do things for the most common use cases and only have a tool like the 'shape select' tool for these special use cases/exceptions. It feels like it's in reverse now tbh.

I'm also definitely not a beginner, only still new to Moho. But even after weeks of working in it it's hard to get used to things like this because to me it feels unnatural and unneeded.

This said, this is me being honest and hoping for improvements as a user who plans to use Moho lots of years to come on a dayly basis when doing 2d projects, definitely no hate whatsoever. I really love all very clever built techniques in Moho and great tools to use so hope the UI on some points will be polished a little more some day to not stay a bottle neck.

[Daxel]

Also I've just noticed that you have some things that may be confusing you on your DEFAULT style. You have forced fill color and forced stroke color on your DEFAULT style (the checkmarks at the right of those colors). That means those colors will not be influenced by any saved style applied. You have the Clothes + Bag style applied to the DEFAULT style, but is not having any effect because of those forced color checkmarks.

[Hoptoad]

Also I've just noticed. . .the checkmarks at the right of those colors. . .means those colors will not be influenced by any saved style applied.

Good catch!

Once I realized that checkboxes are always causing my Style problems, a huge orange neon "+1 to Moho Level" appeared over my head for three seconds.