== Action Editor - Groups for Action Channels (Peach Request) ==

Now, you can assign Action Channels to named (folder-like) groups, which help to organise the channels (important for more complex rigs). These are collapsible, can be "protected", and show a "summary" of the keyframes in the channels the Group contains. They are drawn as bright-green (active) or a darker shade of green (not active) channels.

* Each Action has its own set of Groups. 
* An Action-Channel can only occur in one Group at a time. It can also not occur in any group.
* Action-Channels can be moved between Groups
* Groups + grouped-channels always occur BEFORE un-grouped channels

Important Hotkeys:
* Shift-G  :  Adds the selected Action-Channels to the Active Group. This will create a new group if need be
* Ctrl-Shift-G : Always adds a new group, and adds the selected Action-Channels to it
* Alt-G : Removes selected Action-Channels from their groups
* Ctrl-Shift-Alt-G : (Note: this will be removed soon) This is a simple debugging-hotkey I added, which just prints a list of the groups, channels, and their addresses...
* NKey / Ctrl-LMB: While hovering over the name of a group, this shows a popup like for other channels, which allows the editing of the channel's name, etc.


Assorted Notes:
* Some tools may not work yet with this (Ctrl Numpad+/- for example)
* Fixed some bugs in various places in Action Editor code
* Added theme colours for group channels
* The nomenclature of these tools may change in future when a better alternative is found
* The ability to auto-assign action-channels to groups when they are keyframed will be coming up shortly

2 files changed, 18 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/source/blender/blenloader/intern/readfile.c b/source/blender/blenloader/intern/readfile.c
index 5712f8f03fc..4a21d1fc6fa 100644
--- a/source/blender/blenloader/intern/readfile.c
+++ b/source/blender/blenloader/intern/readfile.c
@@ -1859,12 +1859,24 @@ static void direct_link_bones(FileData *fd, Bone* bone)
 static void direct_link_action(FileData *fd, bAction *act)
 {
 	bActionChannel *achan;
+	bActionGroup *agrp;
 
 	link_list(fd, &act->chanbase);
+	link_list(fd, &act->groups);
 	link_list(fd, &act->markers);
 
-	for (achan = act->chanbase.first; achan; achan=achan->next)
+	for (achan = act->chanbase.first; achan; achan=achan->next) {
+		achan->grp= newdataadr(fd, achan->grp);
+		
 		link_list(fd, &achan->constraintChannels);
+	}
+		
+	for (agrp = act->groups.first; agrp; agrp= agrp->next) {
+		if (agrp->channels.first) {
+			agrp->channels.first= newdataadr(fd, agrp->channels.first);
+			agrp->channels.last= newdataadr(fd, agrp->channels.last);
+		}
+	}
 }
 
 static void direct_link_armature(FileData *fd, bArmature *arm)
diff --git a/source/blender/blenloader/intern/writefile.c b/source/blender/blenloader/intern/writefile.c
index fdea98c7ab2..b5c48716036 100644
--- a/source/blender/blenloader/intern/writefile.c
+++ b/source/blender/blenloader/intern/writefile.c
@@ -1750,6 +1750,7 @@ static void write_actions(WriteData *wd, ListBase *idbase)
 {
 	bAction			*act;
 	bActionChannel	*chan;
+	bActionGroup 	*grp;
 	TimeMarker *marker;
 	
 	for(act=idbase->first; act; act= act->id.next) {
@@ -1762,6 +1763,10 @@ static void write_actions(WriteData *wd, ListBase *idbase)
 				write_constraint_channels(wd, &chan->constraintChannels);
 			}
 			
+			for (grp=act->groups.first; grp; grp=grp->next) {
+				writestruct(wd, DATA, "bActionGroup", 1, grp);
+			}
+			
 			for (marker=act->markers.first; marker; marker=marker->next) {
 				writestruct(wd, DATA, "TimeMarker", 1, marker);
 			}