[Released!] VisualMenus [Commercial]

AnotherUserName

bitwelder said:

AnotherUserName said:

Has anyone been able to script a dedicated close button? I can exit from the little exit tab at the top, I just like to have close buttons.

If you are wanting a button to exit/close daz studio, you could use the built-in "Exit" action (see screenshot). If you are wanting to close a menu window without running an action, you could press "Escape" key on your keyboard, click an empty button, or make an inline script with just a comment line in it, and a description of "Close". In javascript, a comment line begins with two slashes "//"...see screenshot. Or are you trying to do something entirely different?

No, these will work perfectly. Thanks bitwelder.

bitwelder

RAMWolff said:

bitwelder said:

AllenArt said:

FWIW, bitwelder did mention something about looking into persistant menus as an update. That doesn't mean he is going to add it, but he did mention he would look into it ;).

Laurie

Speaking of updates, I've got just a few more days of work left on the 1.1 update. Instead of doing a few little fixes, I decided to just go ahead and implement some of the features people have been asking for. The main features implemented so far:

• Dedicated "Content Library Bookmarks" feature that works for "Daz Studio Formats", "Poser Formats", "Products", and "Categories"
• "Copy actions to new menu" command which, in effect, is like changing templates for an existing menu.
• "Sticky" Action Editor. In other words, it remembers which tab you were last in, and what was selected, making it easier to populate menus. This is a feature you can turn on/off in the prefs.
• Ability to launch menus from the menubar and toolbar (it shows mini-icon representations of the menu)

There are a few other things I'm hoping to include/fix also, but more on those later, once they're actually done.

Once it is ready (in a few days), would anybody be interested in trying it out/testing it? I would send you a VisualMenus.dse that you could (temporarily) replace the current one in your installation...you'd need to feel comfortable/able to do this. 

and you mentioned you were going to fix the font color in the drop down menus... YES?  :-) 

Yes, that is fixed, as well as some other hard-to-read situations depending on which Daz Studio 'Style' the user has selected.

bitwelder

barbult said:

OK, if you want someone to try it before you release the update, I volunteer. Most of my content is installed with Daz Connect.

Cool--thanks! Will PM you when it is ready. 

bitwelder

Cris Palomino said:

Yes, please. :)

bitwelder said:

AllenArt said:

 

Fantastic--will send you a PM when it is ready. Thanks! 

barbult

bitwelder said:

barbult said:

OK, if you want someone to try it before you release the update, I volunteer. Most of my content is installed with Daz Connect.

Cool--thanks! Will PM you when it is ready. 

Great! I'm looking forward to trying the enhancements. I continue to expand my menu system. It is a very helpful product.

bitwelder

silvioarturi_d26d1707cd said:

bitwelder said:

silvioarturi_d26d1707cd said:

bitwelder said:

silvioarturi_d26d1707cd said:

 

That worked, thank you! VM is now running fine, and I can say I'm very happy about this product

Yesssss! :)

hzr

bitwelder said:

hzr said:

I would like an option for an icon to stretch all over the button, even with text display. Right now you only have one or the other, but it would be nice to have a checkbox so that the text display is overlaying the fullsize icon instead of sitting next to or under it.

This has been implemented, will appear in next update. 

Thanks alot! My new content favourites menu will be perfect then :)

RAMWolff

bitwelder said:

RAMWolff said:

bitwelder said:

AllenArt said:

FWIW, bitwelder did mention something about looking into persistant menus as an update. That doesn't mean he is going to add it, but he did mention he would look into it ;).

Laurie

Speaking of updates, I've got just a few more days of work left on the 1.1 update. Instead of doing a few little fixes, I decided to just go ahead and implement some of the features people have been asking for. The main features implemented so far:

• Dedicated "Content Library Bookmarks" feature that works for "Daz Studio Formats", "Poser Formats", "Products", and "Categories"
• "Copy actions to new menu" command which, in effect, is like changing templates for an existing menu.
• "Sticky" Action Editor. In other words, it remembers which tab you were last in, and what was selected, making it easier to populate menus. This is a feature you can turn on/off in the prefs.
• Ability to launch menus from the menubar and toolbar (it shows mini-icon representations of the menu)

There are a few other things I'm hoping to include/fix also, but more on those later, once they're actually done.

Once it is ready (in a few days), would anybody be interested in trying it out/testing it? I would send you a VisualMenus.dse that you could (temporarily) replace the current one in your installation...you'd need to feel comfortable/able to do this. 

and you mentioned you were going to fix the font color in the drop down menus... YES?  :-) 

Yes, that is fixed, as well as some other hard-to-read situations depending on which Daz Studio 'Style' the user has selected.

THANK YOU!  :-) 

Jhud

I purchased this and have been building my little menus. Is there anyway this script can have its own little panel or something that will allow it to stay open until the steps we have clicked all of the buttons to execute the steps needed?

RAMWolff

Jhud said:

I purchased this and have been building my little menus. Is there anyway this script can have its own little panel or something that will allow it to stay open until the steps we have clicked all of the buttons to execute the steps needed?

I like this idea too! 

sandmanmax

stephenschoon said:

How about the facility to merge a saved file into the current scene ?

Can anybody point me at some scripting to do that ?

Thanks

S.

Why don't you map the Merge action onto a menu button?

sandmanmax

bitwelder said:

 

hzr said:

And I second the notion for an inbuilt way to go to a specified content pane entry. While the temporary script solution works, it is also alot of work to maintain all these scripts to go to the entries :)

If you are referring to a built-in way to make Content Library Bookmarks, those have been implemented and will appear in the next update.

Oh, good!!  I was afraid I was going to have debug that script to figure out how to deal with my 6 runtime libraries and all the Poser content, like Rook mentioned.

EDIT:  and if I'd finished reading the api reference sample page, I wouldn't have needed the debugger at all, since they have examples on how to deal with all my runtimes. [head smack]

sandmanmax

bitwelder said:

barbult said:

OK, if you want someone to try it before you release the update, I volunteer. Most of my content is installed with Daz Connect.

Cool--thanks! Will PM you when it is ready. 

LOL!!  I can test too.  None of my content is installed using DAZ Connect, I've got 6 Runtime libraries and have a sadistic tendency to re-org my hard-drive.  (Meaning content doesn't stay in its original locations for very long.)

bitwelder

Jhud said:

I purchased this and have been building my little menus. Is there anyway this script can have its own little panel or something that will allow it to stay open until the steps we have clicked all of the buttons to execute the steps needed?

I like this idea, and tried to implement it, but ran into a number of unenxpected "issues". I will need to take another look at this later, after the 1.1 update is released.

bitwelder

sandman_max said:

stephenschoon said:

How about the facility to merge a saved file into the current scene ?

Can anybody point me at some scripting to do that ?

Thanks

S.

Why don't you map the Merge action onto a menu button?

I thought that content mapped to a button automatically merges into the scene.  Is this not what's happening for you? If not, can you give me an example of the content item that is replacing the whole scene? Or, is it something different that is happening, or not happening? Thanks! 

 

 

sandman_max said:

LOL!!  I can test too.  None of my content is installed using DAZ Connect, I've got 6 Runtime libraries and have a sadistic tendency to re-org my hard-drive.  (Meaning content doesn't stay in its original locations for very long.)

Excellent--Thanks!

GaryH

bitwelder said:

barbult said:

bitwelder said:

barbult said:

bitwelder said:

AllenArt said:

 

Yes, I can. You mentioned "product". Will the new links only link to Content Library Products, or can it link to Content Library mapped and virtual folders in the Daz Studio Formats and Poser Formats section?

I believe you'll be able to make bookmarks for anything you can browse to in the highlighted items in the screenshot. That includes any mapped folders in Daz Studio Formats and Poser Formats. I'm not sure about virtual folders--we'd just have to try it. 

 

bitwelder said:

AnotherUserName said:

Just adding my thanks for the support as well bitwelder. This will make menu navigation much easier and faster.

You're welcome--I'm glad I could help! Speaking of navigation, I've implemented dedicated  "Content Library Bookmarks" in the forthcoming 1.1 (free) update.

For those of us who use, "cough", Smart Content, will I be able to create bookmarks there as well, in either the "Files" or "Products" tab?  The Smart Content pane is essentially just a list of context filtered categories but I'd like to click a button to go to the category in the Smart Content pane vs. the Content Library pane.

barbult

Are you still working on the update. I am eager to try the new features.

AnotherUserName

Same here.

nicstt

I'm curious; what do I need to save (copy/backup) to make sure I save the Visual Menus that I have created?

For example: Studio4 Folder under Roaming > Daz 3D

sandmanmax

In Customize DAZ Studio pane (press F3 from DS), then Export, select Actions (it doesn't hurt to save all the other, too - Layouts, Menus and Tool Bars - then you'll have them when DS gets messed up).  Then exit DAZ Studio completely and it will save the state of things so it reloads the way you want.  If DS crashes without this being done, then you'll lose your menus. Do NOT use the Set Shortcuts button on the VisualMenus Dashboard.  That's got a bug and it will crash.

sandmanmax

Does anybody know if you can create buttons for your favorite morphs  (since DAZ still hasn't let us save them within the app)?  Or would that take scripts for each character and morph?  I don't want a lot - just Arms Up/Down, since it's virtually the first thing I do to every single character I load.

And I just thought of something else that would be handy.  "Hide everything below currently selected item".

nicstt

cheers

nicstt

You can create them if they exist as presets; select the ones you want and when you go in to the Visual Menu Action Editor they will be listed; otherwise not seen a way, other than with script or inline script.

It would be very useful!

RAMWolff

I'm really really ready for this update.  YOINKS! 

evacyn

Anyone else find that pressing a custom VM button occassionally causes DAZ to hang/crash? I can't pinpoint what's causing it but sometimes when I click the VM button once nothing happens but I can keep using DAZ without issue. However, when I click the same button again or another VM button it causes DAZ to hang/crash. My system resources aren't maxed out - a lot of times it happens when I have only one asset in the viewport and nothing else in the scene.

EDIT:  Okay - it seems to be caused by DAZ using the resources for the Aux Viewport to display Iray - the VM window pops up after the Iray render appears. All of the DAZ-based menus work though while the Iray image is rendering.

nicstt

I found a short cut that does it; when setting it, didn't flag it as used, but it was, and crashed studio when i clicked it - can't find which one it was now.

 

I understand that keeping the previous menu open when openning a new one was being looked at?

This would be useful, especially if can have a check to determine if that action occurs; sometimes not keeping the previous menu open is good too.

nicstt

I'm not sure if I've found an unreported bug or not.

Select a short cut; for example I have Ctrl Alt C for OOTs Hair Shader as per image; it didn't popup striaghtaway as normal, so I did it again (thinking and pressed the keys incorrectly), and Studio crashed.

I've managed to repeat the steps when the menu doesn't appear immediately; not sure why it would fail to appear immediately though - which is a pre-requisite for the crash. To be accurate Studio becomes unresponsive and I have to kill the task.

Anyone seeing this (second image); the shortcut should be 'O' not the O with an accent. Not sure how that is being picked up; my keyboard is set to UK.

nowefg

Recent download, about two weeks ago. Still having endless hang crashes, too. Access the script, create a new script, edit it, apply a keyboard shortcut from within Visual Menus, get to the Customization Pane, apply the shortcut, apply/accept, boom. Or, same scenario, but go directly to Customization Pane after editing and assign the shortcut there. Half the time the shortcut, applied and accepted, doesn't show up in the Visual Menus list.. The other half of the time, using the shortcut causes an immediate hang. No particular pattern regarding overriding existing shortcuts or not.

The UI aspects work fine. It's the shortcut assign process situation that remains broken. So tedious.

Is Visual Menus going to get finally ready for prime time someday, or what? Such a great, great idea, so useful. Can it be fixed, or is this just yet another Daz oops?

 

nicstt

If one clicks a short cut link too quickly after executing an option, then studio crashes. This relates to what already posted about crashing.

 

nicstt

Well, was hoping for a post about backing up Visual Menu shortcuts; 'NO' Exporting from Customize Daz Studio does not work (F3 shortcut). If you open the file you export in a text editor, none of the shortcuts are there.

There is a way to back them up, but it may be risky?

They are stored in two places (I presume you are using Studio Release and not Beta):

C:\Users\YOUR_NAME\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\customactions.dsx

and

... Daz 3D Library\Scripts\VisualMenus\rsc\menus

The only way, once Studio has been closed (wait a good few seconds to be sure it has done so - it can linger), is to copy the CustomActions.dsx and the whole menus folder.

Pasting them in their respective places will - again once Studio has been closed, will restore them.

You can export them from Visual Menus, but this doesn't include the Short Cut.

Restoring lots of shorts mar's (only slightly) was is an otherwise truly excellent product. Hoping this can be fixed?

You need to be aware that you could lose other script actions by replacing with a previously copied one.