Like a few months ago I've seen a lot of suggestions about things like onion skin or a frame system. Basically, a better way to animate, which should not be in the costume tab since that's meant for drawing.

I made 2 different ideas because I can't tell which one is better.

1: probably in scratch 4.0, a animation tab could be a much needed addition. I'm thinking it could look something like flip-a-clip (a mobile animating app), where the frames are at the bottom, and your drawing tools are on the left. the onion skin can be changed depending on how many frames you want to see. Like costumes you can export this however it will export as a .gif. Also too use animation in a scratch project there has to be a section of blocks for animation. so here are a few:

2: Rather than a tab, you can make one like you make a sprite, the UI and blocks are the same as the first idea. But this would need to make room for animations, which might make it look messy.

Overall, some sort of way to make better animations would help improve scratch a lot!

EDIT: Yes, I know 4.0 isnt in development, i don't think the ST can add this into 3.0 because they would have to rework MOST of the UI. 4.0 is the next reasonable thing.

Scratch isn't all about animations you know. I also think this could be too complex for beginners.

Plus, this sounds exactly like the costumes tab but with onion skinning and the costumes bar is on the bottom instead.

8bitrkt wrote:

and your drawing tools are on the left

This means the regular old drawing tools right, or do you want more drawing tools specific for animation?

scratch isn't really designed for making animations alone, and I feel like this might be a little confusing. also, how hard is it to animate in the existing editor? if you need onion skinning, use turbowarp. otherwise the duplicate option for costumes works fine(except when animating in bitmap).

musicROCKS013 wrote:

Scratch isn't all about animations you know.

Yes, I do in fact know, but I also know that animations are a big piece of the community, alongside artwork, games, effects and more.

musicROCKS013 wrote:

I also think this could be too complex for beginners.

Plus, this sounds exactly like the costumes tab but with onion skinning and the costumes bar is on the bottom instead.

I was trying to go for something similar with the costume tab, just to keep it a bit clean, but maybe just a few changes (stated in the OP). Which shouldn't make it confusing for beginners if they can use the costume tab,

musicROCKS013 wrote:

This means the regular old drawing tools right, or do you want more drawing tools specific for animation?

Sort of, again it would be similar to the costume tab with where everything is, the onion skin slider would be below the drawing tools, and so would the play/stop button, in term of drawing tools, Hopefully scratch will have more utensils available, like a pencil tool alongside the brush. (I should've put this in the OP, just to clarify what I meant “by drawing tools”)

8bitrkt wrote:

Yes, I do in fact know, but I also know that animations are a big piece of the community, alongside artwork, games, effects and more.

Scratch tries to tailor for as many parts of the community as possible. This is also why game-centred suggestions like an entire TAS editor (which, no joke, was suggested once) are rejected.

8bitrkt wrote:

I was trying to go for something similar with the costume tab, just to keep it a bit clean, but maybe just a few changes (stated in the OP). Which shouldn't make it confusing for beginners if they can use the costume tab

An entirely new tab that's essentially a clone of the costume tab is not in any way “clean”, and it doesn't achieve the goal of “making it clear for beginners (if they can use the costume tab)”

8bitrkt wrote:

Sort of, again it would be similar to the costume tab with where everything is, the onion skin slider would be below the drawing tools, and so would the play/stop button, in term of drawing tools, Hopefully scratch will have more utensils available, like a pencil tool alongside the brush. (I should've put this in the OP, just to clarify what I meant “by drawing tools”)

…sigh….
The onion skin feature is available through a browser extension and you can just use the arrow keys to preview an animation. What use does an entirely new tab have as compared as to the current system now?

I agree with the points both musicROCKS013 and -Valtren- have provided (that an entirely new tab will be confusing)…


…speaking of nono word, what if I just send an issue to their github for a new animation focused tab. I mean like, the tab mechanic is already there (the variable tab)…

8bitrkt kinda wrote:

Wait, if this is a percent, what happens when you make it 100? How fast does it go?