Hiding skin features.

[RobM]

Hi All.

Here's one I'm trying to work out. I've been building a tweaking a lot of skin setups lately for clients and my own use. It seems that I have to save each setup or variation of a skin as a separate and new skin version.
Is there any way of having say, a fully loaded skin but only actually using or showing parts of that in a project.

A simple example would be a skin with a few custom icons that are relevant to one project, the next project I might not want to use those icons but keep the rest. Things can be hidden in the skin tree and the skin editor but they show up in the rendered project.
Of course, some things don't show up unless called up. I have custom image and video popups that remain hidden until called via a control on the interface. But it's be nice to be able to hide those controls sometimes without deleting them or using a new skin.

Is there a way, or do I have to continue modifying a skin and saving it as a version each time?

Cheers,
Rob

[360Texas]

Agreed: Only a thought - it could get complicated fast.

You might consider suggesting your CORE set of functions ?

The switch ON/OFF function list approach is interesting.

The set of prebuilt skins already provide a small set of functions albiet, the 100+ or so users always seem to have their own unique depending on their own needs for their project. A skin that has ALL functions... probably would get large fast and might slow down the delivery process with unneeded hidden skin elements.

Maybe the unneeded hidden skin elements could be automatically be removed from the final output skin group.

[RobM]

Agreed: Only a thought - it could get complicated fast.

You might consider suggesting your CORE set of functions ?

The switch ON/OFF function list approach is interesting.

The set of prebuilt skins already provide a small set of functions albiet, the 100+ or so users always seem to have their own unique depending on their own needs for their project. A skin that has ALL functions... probably would get large fast and might slow down the delivery process with unneeded hidden skin elements.

Maybe the unneeded hidden skin elements could be automatically be removed from the final output skin group.

A simple 'hide from project' check box, similar to the hide visibility in skin editor would be nice.
I end up copy/pasting skin elements from other skins so I can build up new skins from various bits and pieces I have saved out.

[Hopki]

As a thought...
You could have all elements hidden.
Then in the skin have node markers with tags, example skin_green, skin_red and skin_blue.

Each node marker can then have the actions to show all the elements that skin will use.

An example would be tag a pano in the user data, skin_blue.
Then when it loads the node marker with the tag skin_blue would show all blue skin elements.

The same skin with a pano with a tag skin_green will display the green skin.
The only drawback would be all elements will be included in the SWF but if just skin elements then it should not be a problem.

regards,
Hopki

[RobM]

As a thought...
You could have all elements hidden.
Then in the skin have node markers with tags, example skin_green, skin_red and skin_blue.

Each node marker can then have the actions to show all the elements that skin will use.

An example would be tag a pano in the user data, skin_blue.
Then when it loads the node marker with the tag skin_blue would show all blue skin elements.

The same skin with a pano with a tag skin_green will display the green skin.
The only drawback would be all elements will be included in the SWF but if just skin elements then it should not be a problem.

regards,
Hopki

As soon as I can get my head around that I'll give it a go. Thanks Martin.