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Hello everyone,

I want to share that I’ve been working with the program for several years and have been observing its development since version 3. There are a few things I’d like to share from my experience, and I believe that if implemented, the program would become even better and more polished. Currently, I’m using version 4.1, and here are some suggestions that I think could be implemented and improved:

Sorting folders in the draw order (something available in 4.2, but it would be great if it could also be implemented in 4.1).

An option to align/snap points with Shift when creating a mask. The same feature would be great for mesh editing as well.

Adding guides.

The ability to save a path constraint when importing into a new file. The same functionality for importing constraints from one project to another would also be a great addition.

When dragging a large number of images into the root, the ability to invert the entire draw order with a single click when selecting their draw order.

The ability to group selected bones/slots/holders. Similar to the Ctrl + 1 quick selection functionality, there could be an option to link a group of bones so that selecting one bone would automatically select all the others. The same functionality could be applied to holders.

A button for the images folder that cleans up unused assets in the Spine project. For example, After Effects has a "Clear Unused Assets" feature. If someone decides to use the image folder for export, they currently need to manually go through the entire folder and check which assets are green/orange. I think this would save a lot of time.

Thank you for your time. I hope this feedback is constructive, and I’m open to discussions as well.

Related Discussions
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  • Erika

  • Gönderi #3
  • Bu yayın İngilizce içinde

Hello, thank you for taking the time to think of suggestions to improve Spine!

Every time we add a new feature, to make it available the version has to progress. This is why we can only add new features to the latest version. So the answer to start using folders would be to simply upgrade to the latest Spine version.

As for aligning or snapping vertices, you can copy and paste a vertex position, so for example if you place an image precisely, you can then turn it into a mesh and copy the vertex position from that to your clipping.
https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-tools#Copypaste
Further improvements have been suggested here:
EsotericSoftware/spine-editor77
EsotericSoftware/spine-editor274

Guides are also planned on our tracker here:
EsotericSoftware/spine-editor145

Currently it is not possible to import a constraint fom one skeleton to another, or via import data, or to move said constraint from one skeleton to another within the same project. I have therefore added your suggestion to this issue:
EsotericSoftware/spine-editor582

It is already possible to group slots in a folder in 4.2, is it already possible to select a group of bones with CTRL+a number as you mentioned. (not sure what you envision with "holders" grouping, they are already inside a slot that groups them so further clarification is needed).
Probably this issue here could help with what you're loooking for, but it hasn't been implemented yet:
EsotericSoftware/spine-editor409

Find and Replace can find the unused images in your Spine project for you:
https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-tree#Find-and-replace
If your project doesn't need every image inside your images folder, then pack the attachments and not the images folder, this will automatically export only the images actually used by your skeleton. It also means you don't have to go hunt for the images that are used or not on disk, since they won't be exported.

I hope you'll be able to upgrade to the latest version to enjoy the improvements already there, and possibly the new ones that will come. As mentioned, if the improvements are implemented, they will be on the latest version.

  • Nate

  • Gönderi #4
  • Bu yayın İngilizce içinde

To add to Erika's great post, you can "clean" your images folder by packing an atlas using Attachments, then unpack the atlas to get individual files again. This way you can unpack to an empty folder, giving you a folder that contains only the images that are used in your project.

Granted this is a bit of a process and we could provide a slightly easier way to do it, but hopefully it's not an operation you need very often. So far Spine tries to not do filesystem operations with images (just export and PSD import). I'm wary about a feature that deletes unused files, though it would put them in the recycle bin.

On Windows, once you have a folder of image files that are used in your project, you can copy those back to the original images folder that contains other images. When copying, choose to overwrite. Afterwords Windows will leave the overwritten files selected, so now delete the selected files. You've removed the files used by your project, leaving only the files not used by your project. This allows you to review the files not used by your project, to find images that should have been used or other issues.

As always, copy your files somewhere safe before deleting things!

Thank you for taking the time; the information is definitely helpful. I’ll keep you updated if anything else comes up.