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When you are anywhere on the tail of a layer and you delete a selection of frames (or just one), the layer remains at its start position and the frames after the selection are shifted to the left.
so far so good.

My request is that when a selection of frames on a layer includes the first frame, deleting this selection, should leave the remaining frames at the position that they were
In by far the most cases i delete the first part of a layer to trim it to match other layers, meaning the rest of the layer should stay put.
Now, after deleting
begin frames, i always have to re-shift the remains back to where they were before.

the general logic in layer behaviour when deleting frames should be:
deleting frames lets the layer stay in position on the timeline

What do others think?

I agree and use this quite often.

+1

Yea +1 from me too

I don't object, but wouldn't it be quite easy to just split the layer, then delete the layer containing the first unwanted frames?

Sure, that's the damn inconvenient workaround. That's a whole lot of extra clicks.

Here's a button/script called "DELETE FIRST" which I think does what you propose, Peter.

Here are the rules for using:

1. BE SURE TO TEST ON NON-CRITICAL PROJECT FIRST TO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND
AND TRUST HOW IT WORKS.

2.ONLY USE when you are deleting the BEGINNING FRAME (AND ONE-OR-MORE
FOLLOWING FRAMES) from the current layer. Note that the beginning frame
need not be frame number 1.

3. Start by selecting the frames to be removed (always include the beginning frame)
on the current layer.

4. Click the "Delete First" button.

5. Result on the current layer will remove the selected frames and
reposition the remaining frames so they maintain their original
positions.

If you try it, please post problems or suggested changes/enhancements, thanks.

Sven

Peter Wassink wrote: ↑28 Aug 2020, 16:46
the general logic in layer behaviour when deleting frames should be:
deleting frames lets the layer stay in position on the timeline

What do others think?

+1

2dbert wrote: ↑30 Aug 2020, 19:55 I don't object, but wouldn't it be quite easy to just split the layer, then delete the layer containing the first unwanted frames?

That is a workaround I use , but as Paul mentions it is a bit of a pain to do it like that.

I notice that the always helpful Svengali has posted a script to accomplish this , so I'm looking forward to trying Sven's script . However, I still agree with Peter's request to have the default behaviour be : deleting frames lets the layer stay in position on the timeline .

Svengali's script is very simple and direct; one button called, Delete First, and that's precisely what happens when you underline any amount of frames and click on the button; the selected frames get deleted without causing the layer to jump to the left.

Maybe its an idea to have the "lock position" option (handsymbol in the layer header) play a role.

when selected the layer does not move.
when unselected the layer jumps to remain at its old start position.

Hi, I just finished adding a bunch of deletion options to the timeline contextual menu. This will be available in the future release 11.5.1

Could you please just tell, how you'd name these different options ?
- let empty : keep the layer instances in place but clear their content
- shift previous : remove the layer instances, and shift the previous instances from the left to fill the gap
- pull next : remove the layer instances, and pull the next instances from the right to fill the gap

Regarding the two latter options, would "shift left" and "shift right" be significant enough for everyone ? When you delete instances in the middle of the layer, it's not that obvious to understand what it will do...
I've be thinking about using "-> forward" and "backward <-", for example. What do you think ?

Thanks for using TVPaint

Thinking out loud here:
Keep emptied instances in place
Replace emptied instances with frames to the left
Replace emptied instances with frames to the right

SHORTER:

Keep empty
Replace from left
Replace from right

PERHAPS BETTER:

Fill gap from left
Fill gap from right

Thanks for the ideas ! yes, "fill gap" could be significant enough

Glad for the opportunity ,..