Improved Grouping and 12 new shape templates

We introduced shape templates a couple of weeks back and here we are with 12 more shape templates.
Shapes that we added this week are

3 new basic shapes

Arrows

Turns

4 new flowchart shapes, to add the extra detail

And yes we have a new section, callouts !

We will keep bringing more !


Grouping objects was available in previous releases. But as we found out, it caused a bit of confusion when there was no change in the timeline for it. We have thus enhanced the timeline control to remove this confusion. As you see below, the multidocument shape is composed of multiple sub-shapes. Each of this shape is neatly now shown as a child of the group Multi Document 1.

Happy Animating !

New Features 3 Jun/2012

We added shape templates in the last week release. Here we are with 10 more shapes.
We have added a few arrows and flowchart templates. More shapes to come soon enough!

More shape templates!

For all this long we had the option to open our old creations using the open menu option. From the backend we had all the controls, but soon we realized that this is missing from the interface. Now you have it!

Manage your old animations!

List of all your animations

Remove your stuff with ease

New Features 27 May/2012

We all love templates, this release introduces templates in the tools.

The new tool is accessible shown here. It is the one right after the triangle tool.

More templates will be added soon !

Freehand drawing is the easiest way to create objects. Freehand drawing can now easily be created using the freehand tool. This tool is available just below the triangle tool.

Happy animating!

New Features 15 Apr/2012

We have been experimenting a lot on how to improve the way animation is created. One thing we realized is that the font selection was a bit difficult. Since there was no preview of how you can select the fonts. We thus have improved on the UI design and provided for a simpler and easier way to select fonts.

The font selection dialog show a sample text beside the font name. We hope this makes font selection easier. Happy animating!

New Features 4 Apr/2012

It has been some time since we posted our last update. But we have been busy, really busy getting you the new improved designer.

Here is what we have been doing:

1. You can now scroll the animation canvas up and down, left and right.
2. You can zoom into animations by specifying the zoom amount in the box below the animation

3. The selector shows the x,y location now

4. A new rotation helper has been added. Hope this improves the experience.

5. You can pick colors from different objects now. Try it !

New Features 26/February/2012

Here are the updates for this week:


Circle
Circle editing options in the old release were limited to scaling and no rotation. Now a circle behave exactly like a filled bezier curve.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Selection objects can be moved around using arrow keys, so that we have better alignment. 

More Line Editing  Options
You can edit the line thickness, join type and cap type. Try them out!

Select Objects using the Timeline
Clicking on the object names now selects the objects. I hope this eases the way people select objects.

Document Close
Animations can now  be closed using the File > Close menu option.
 
Group/Un-Group
This feature has been temporarily disabled as we have some open bugs with this feature.


Browser Note
We currently run our tests on Firefox and Chrome. Users are now informed about this when the page loads up, so that people have the best experience when they try out animator.

New Features 19/February/2012

This week was a rather busy one. There were so many new things we wanted to squeeze in. Here is what we managed to fit in.

Lines

1. You can fill a area created by lines/curves. Adding or removing points is simple enough. Just click on the more option button and you can insert points or delete points as needed.

2. Supports opacity / alpha values for colors

3. Don't want fill? Turn it off

Object Names
Naming convention for new objects has been improved, based on the suggestions received. Thank you!

Open Animations
You can now open your old animations.

Restore animations after Login

Previously the animations were reset, the moment you came back from login or opened the page again. Now the old state is reloaded when you come back.

Under the Hood
As much as the front facing designer's interface is important, the backend also went through a lot of changes. Most of them being specific to the way we handle the database queries. Also we went through a major headache while getting to move to this new system. We hope that we do not have to see it again!

Your session now lasts for a longer time, so you can take a break and not worry about losing your animation.