make animations clearer

[umlaeute]

as for a common format: i don't really know, but wouldn't overthink this now
[...]
for keyboard shortcuts i was thinking about using animated GIFs to illustrate their use.

with my #13 (and your #22, which follows the spirit) i now see that I'm not totally happy with the current keyboard-shortcut-animations, as they don't really convey the chain of cause and effect.

i guess the most important thing is to establish

1. how it looked before
2. which action needs to be performed
3. how it looks afterwards

allowing the user to distinguish between before and after probably means, that they should be aware of the start of the animation.
we probably could automatically insert one (or more) empty frame(s) at the end of the animation, but i think this will mostly get in the way of nice animations.

Originally posted by @umlaeute in #10 (comment)

[umlaeute]

so as a first remedy, i've disabled the auto-looping of animations.

this way, an animation has a clear beginning and an end (though less clear).

in order to restart the animation, the user must now click anywhere in the tip (for whatever reasons i couldn't add a tag to the image itself, so it was not possible to bind the click only to the image).

the question is: how to tell people that they can restart the animation? adding some text to each tip (with an image) seems like a lot of noise (once you got the idea)... add another tip?

[umlaeute]

the other problem is, how the actual GIFs should look like. maybe somebody with more knowledge could suggest a template

i'm having a hard time finding something useful on the internet though:

[aaaaalbert]

i guess the most important thing is to establish

1. how it looked before
2. which action needs to be performed
3. how it looks afterwards

I agree. My attempt in #22 to show the start / stop of the GIF was to move the mouse cursor into the window a few moments after the video starts, and move it out of the window after showing the interaction. The GIF took a few takes before I felt it showed the sequence of pressing Ctrl, clicking the object, releasing the key etc. slowly enough to be discernible. (Other issues remain, e.g. the number box gets out of focus as the GIF loops.)

i've disabled the auto-looping of animations.

I think looping the GIFs is better than not looping. Memes made us grow to expect this.

Random thought mode on:

• Some common visual indicator of the start and stop would make sense. Could be a simple, quick fade from/to black.
• On the other hand, for many cases a GIF almost feels like too much. Like, just Ctrl-click that number box a few times, OK? Not that hard!
• Or open a new can of worms and include / allow to open additional small "tip patches" where you can try out the tip right away, probably with more commentary. (Inspired by a colleague who is working on a Pd beginner's manual in the form of patches, which in turn is inspired by prior work in a Pd messages tutorial, a GUI tutorial, and a tool for making multiple connections.)

[umlaeute]

i like tip-patches (as long as they follow the spirit and only teach a single thing)

please open a feature request ;-)

as for looping: you're probably right. although i quite like the feel of the current non-looping GIFs (it makes it much easier to follow, as the i can focus my attention on the entire sequence)