== 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

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/source/blender/include/BDR_drawaction.h b/source/blender/include/BDR_drawaction.h
index 673b13672c1..1753f4ecf42 100644
--- a/source/blender/include/BDR_drawaction.h
+++ b/source/blender/include/BDR_drawaction.h
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ struct Ipo;
 struct IpoCurve;
 struct gla2DDrawInfo;
 struct bAction;
+struct bActionGroup;
 struct Object;
 struct ListBase;
 
@@ -75,14 +76,16 @@ void draw_cfra_action(void);
 /* Channel Drawing */
 void draw_icu_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, struct IpoCurve *icu, float ypos);
 void draw_ipo_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, struct Ipo *ipo, float ypos);
-void draw_action_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, bAction *act, float ypos);
-void draw_object_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, Object *ob, float ypos);
+void draw_agroup_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, struct bActionGroup *agrp, float ypos);
+void draw_action_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, struct bAction *act, float ypos);
+void draw_object_channel(struct gla2DDrawInfo *di, struct Object *ob, float ypos);
 
 /* Keydata Generation */
 void icu_to_keylist(struct IpoCurve *icu, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
 void ipo_to_keylist(struct Ipo *ipo, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
-void action_to_keylist(bAction *act, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
-void ob_to_keylist(Object *ob, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
+void agroup_to_keylist(struct bActionGroup *agrp, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
+void action_to_keylist(struct bAction *act, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
+void ob_to_keylist(struct Object *ob, ListBase *keys, ListBase *blocks);
 
 #endif  /*  BDR_DRAWACTION_H */