I have a series of HDAs that have a tone of invisible parameters, this makes it difficult to edit them when you have to scroll through a huge list to find something…so I have placed the parameters into folders - great for navigating the type properties but bad because the ‘empty’ folders appear on the parameter dialog… so can we have invisible folders? oh and can we have the folders be collapsed by default?
Yeah. Agreed. I think I posted a RFE to support about this too!
Meantime, I've been adding in an invisible param (float) called “INVISIBLE PARMS BELOW HERE”. And then I've put all the invisible param's below that one.. Though I haven't had so many to want folders (yet!): the ‘invisibles’ are mostly render-range params which i want to be able to change when the OTL is locked.
b.
''You're always doing this: reducing it to science. Why can't it be real?'' – Jackie Tyler
I agree with this RFE. Same goes for entire tabs needing a disablewhen on them. The idea is to group parameters by ‘task’ and a single toggle can enable/disable a task.
I think this speaks to a larger RFE… all the OTL interface doo-dads should have the same abilities (where applicable) so folders and even separators should have visibility, disable when etc…all the things that make sense.
I'm sure you've explored just plain deleting the parameters from the HDA interface. I presume you just like having them around as a conveinience in case you wanted to “add” a new parameter, for example.
Yah. When an OTL is locked, you can't change stuff down inside it. So it's useful to have locked-expressions refer to (invisible) parameters up at the top-level, where things can change! That's trickery of sorts. Though… I think this is a weird way of doing things - i'm not sure that's what invisible parameters (IP's) were meant for originally – but they open the door to all sorts of possibilties for locked OTL's.
Oh, here's another strange use for IP's: When you've had an OTL out in use for a while and you want to change a param's type then they're useful.
Say you want to change a parameter type from an integer to a string. If you just delete the “old” integer param and add a new string param, then when people load the new OTL with an old hip file they'll get all these scarey warnings about how that integer param is missing (!!!!?!). However, if you just make it invisible, and set things up so they have to now use the string param, then the parm is no longer missing. It's just not visible (usable). It's a smoother way to transition..
Perhaps it's time for SESI to look at IP's again, now that we all have a better idea about OTL's. For starters, IP's could get their own tab in the Type Properties. Better still, I think there should be a different mechanism to handle locked-OTL variables. Right now, it's a hack at best. It's not really about being “invisible” is it?
Also, it'd be nice if all variable-type options were available for all types (re: arctor). For example: I would like to set the “join with next” option on the Label type. I have a string of toggles all joined together on a line, and i'd like to start the line with a Label. Can't do it. That option's not there for Label. Why?
Lastly, I wonder if there's a way to specify the default value for a dynamic menu. This is where you specify a script which returns token/label pairs on the fly to build an OTL menu. I think it would be cool if you could also spec the default menu item in this script. Like, in the simplest sense, a line like “default 2” in that script.
b.
''You're always doing this: reducing it to science. Why can't it be real?'' – Jackie Tyler
