Double Clicking to Open a Project Should Not Create an Empty Project

[cakeller]

Hi, if I double click a character animator project file to open it, it is so messy to have Ch create a default empty project. Those default empty projects are litterally just clutter!

Ch should always open by default similar to all other products - like After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator.

I have quite gotten used to opening Character Animator and it starting up right where I left off, but when it causes problems, it's really frustrating.  And creating empty default problems is seriously gross for my OCD, especially when there's no thumbnail for the project.

Please, for the love of parsimony... make Ch work like other adobe apps when opening up.

PS> the way that Ch works with all the temp files, it's a horrific nightmare to work on Creative Cloud file storage, even exporting puppets can easily cause a sync error.  Creative cloud tries to sync the temporary repository, and then chokes and won't realize that the files are on neither local or server, and shoudl be dequeued. just sits and says "error"

[CoSA_DaveS]

Are you deleting the last .chproj that you used? Ch shouldn't be creating a new project every time you double-click on another, although it does briefly open the last project you had open when it launches — even if you launch it by double-clicking on a different project. If the last-opened project doesn't exist where it was before, indeed Ch will create a new default project before it realizes you are opening a different one.

It’s an annoying quirk caused by the current architecture combined with the operating system not sending the open-project request during startup. If Ch is creating new projects every time and you’re not deleting the last project you had open, please provide detailed steps for this so we can fix it.

Regarding storing an open project in location that is synchronized (CC, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc), indeed that doesn't work well, and can actually corrupt your project if it’s modified on more than one machine at once. Ch is supposed to warn you about this if the project is in a synced folder. What operating system version and Creative Cloud Desktop version are you using? Is the synced folder on your main drive or an external drive?

Thank you for the feedback!

[cakeller]

• "Are you deleting the last .chproj that you used?"
  - No
  
  
• "Ch shouldn't be creating a new project every time you double-click on another"
  - Well it does... but you're right it's doing it if the previous project is no longer. it's still creating clutter. don't create a new one, just open the first default one or none at all. this behavior is REALLY messy.
  
  
• ", although it does briefly open the last project you had open when it launches — even if you launch it by double-clicking on a different project."
  - This is annoying and doesn't match the rest of Adobe CC apps.
  
  
• "If the last-opened project doesn't exist where it was before, indeed Ch will create a new default project before it realizes you are opening a different one."
  - It should NOT do this, it should behave as if the alt button was held down.  Period.  This is not, IMO, correct behavior.
  
  
• "It’s an annoying quirk caused by the current architecture combined with the operating system not sending the open-project request during startup"
  - I don't understand how this can't be fixed when you can hold down alt, and the behavior would be as normally expected. FLIP these behaviors or allow a shortcut switch. Something / Anything. When this behavior goes wrong it's pretty frustrating.
• " If Ch is creating new projects every time and you’re not deleting the last project you had open, please provide detailed steps for this so we can fix it."
  - Ahh you're right - I was archiving old versions of projects after verifying them and consolidating their media files, I'd close them and archive/delete them and move on to the next. I still think the this behavior is incorrect. why not make a preference setting to open last opened project on launch. This functionality is ALREADY there in holding the ALT key while starting.

• "Regarding storing an open project in location that is synchronized (CC, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc), indeed that doesn't work well, and can actually corrupt your project if it’s modified on more than one machine at once."
  - ok well I stopped using it. which sucks from a collaboration standpoint.  In fact the entire file structure of a character animator project is rather terrible from a collaboration point of view. suggestion - have a method of exporting to an archive version of the project like a .chzip or something. and for goodness sakes create the temporary project IN THE TEMP FOLDER!!! so that when it is copied to the creative cloud directory it hasn't gone in and created a few hundred temp files that then need to be deleted!
  
  
• "Ch is supposed to warn you about this if the project is in a synced folder."
  - I did not recieve a warning. And I have stopped using CC storage for Character Animator.  After having spent 4-6 hours per session on more than one occasion trying to empty the deleted files - OMG this is another abhorrent topic that makes my brain boil! there's literally no easy way to empty deleted folder, not even with the help of tech support.  I've lost a full working day+ of productivity over this. obviously I've fixed my workflow but yuck!.  10,000 files takes about 4-6 hours to delete from CC deleted files. and tech support can't even help. ;( and I was promised a call from an engineer over this and never recieved it. oh well. I finished and will hopefully NEVER make the mistake again.
  
  
• "What operating system version and Creative Cloud Desktop version are you using?"
  - Windows 10 x64 latest build. Creative Cloud Desktop (always up-to-date)
  
  
• "Is the synced folder on your main drive or an external drive?"
  - Default location C:\Users\<me>\Documents\Creative Cloud Files\
  

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me. I have worked around a lot of these shortcomings so in practice I can still do what I need to. But when things break down I end up wasting a lot of time futzing with things.

[cakeller]

Summary - For what it's worth I really think the following would solve a lot of problems for me, and I think others as well: 

1. add a preference to open Ch by default in the same way it opens when pressing Alt <Most important
2. add an option to save an "archive" similar to a puppet, but with the entire project.
3. add an option to save a "scene" akin to that of saving a puppet (then you can archive your completed scenes with all the necessary components etc exactly as it was when last exported as a video, etc.)
4. saving puppets and any other archive type should create it's temp files in the local temp folder to avoid vomiting temp files onto cloud folders only to delete them and end up with zombied files.
5. change behavior so that Ch first checks if it's opening a project from a double click before re-opening the prior project. again... if #1 above is the default behavior, this would be a straight up no-brainer.

Creative Cloud's Deleted Folder (not specifically related to Ch, but... )

1. I would request, please talk to the CC folks and encourage them to add an "empty deleted" button and better ways to see that the files in there are ones you actually want to delete and they aren't files that CC "accidentally" wiped off your local drive - which has happened as well, which is why I prefer to keep deleted files to a minimum so I can review the deleted content to verify it should be deleted. 10,000 files can't easily be reviewed so no more Ch on CC for me. hahah.

[CoSA_DaveS]

> why not make a preference setting to open last opened project on launch. This functionality is ALREADY there in holding the ALT key while starting.

The existing default launch behavior is to reopen the last project you had open. Holding down ALT while launching always creates a fresh new project instead. So it sounds like what you want is already the default behavior? Note that that project has to still exist in the same location on disk for it to be re-opened, otherwise a new project is opened.

> for goodness sakes create the temporary project IN THE TEMP FOLDER!!! so that when it is copied to the creative cloud directory it hasn't gone in and created a few hundred temp files that then need to be deleted!

We create the temp files inside the project so you can reopen the project and not have it take a very long time to regenerate the temp files — this can take minutes for large projects. But if we added an Archive Project command, it would leave the temp files behind, so I think this could be a good solution for you.

>>"Ch is supposed to warn you about this if the project is in a synced folder."
>I did not recieve a warning.

We'll do some testing on this to see what's going on. If we can't reproduce the problem we may need more help from you.

> 10,000 files takes about 4-6 hours to delete from CC deleted files. and tech support can't even help.

That does sound ridiculous. Were those files all from huge temp directories? Older versions of Ch used to create thousands of (non-temp) files just from regular project edits, but we fixed that a few years ago. Note that opening an old Ch project from back then will still suffer from that issue. Use File > Save Project As... to update it to the modern scheme.

Thank you for the detailed information and requests!

[cakeller]

Exporting the puppet creates a temporary "project" in the folder where the final .puppet file will reside.  What I was suggesting is to do the temporary project in the system temp folder and then move that to the final puppet file.  It's especially problematic on Creative Cloud  where the temp files get deleted one by one and then end up a nightmare to permanently delete in "deleted files" not only that but there's risk of zombie files that won't sync and show as an error in CC.

Thanks for the hint about the temp files. I just tested and it appears I can delete the temp.noindex and artwork.noindex without adverse effects - the project will still open. So in my archive script I'll exclude those folders from the operation. - I really do wish for a scene and project export function so they can create the archived version without ANY cached files.  And an exported scene basically flattens the file down so ONLY the stuff needed to play back the scene is included.  For locking down a final snapshot, I think that'd be fantastic.  just like how a puppet exports.

Thanks for the feedback on my feedback. I guess I understand the problem now. I was gong through and verifying my projects, collecting the media and then zipping them up and deleting the project folder. I guess I was deleting the projects and that's why Ch was creating empty projects. I still think that if Ch doesn't have a project to start up with it should open to the HOME page and not create a project until you click "new" but as you mentioned this is not how Ch is architected.  Perhaps Ch should attempt to open the default project if it's there, instead of creating a new empty one? I guess that could get confusing for some people...

Anyway, thanks again.  and for what it's worth, I use Save-As to do 2 things. First it leaves behind all the garbage arf files that are no longer included in the project, and Second it lets you have a trail of backup projects in case, for whatever reason, your project gets corrupted.  I've had several instances where a corrupted project probably could have been recovered but because Ch opened it and immediately began the process of saving, then it obliterated everything (the corruption prevented loading of the puppets and scenes, and because that then SAVES immediately, you've now got nothing in the scene and you're saving over the existing scene!!! it's pretty gut wrenching when you realize what just happened)  So now every couple hours of work I'll do a save-as and archive/zip the previous iterations. a little tedium to prevent losing days or weeks of work.

Best,

  Chris

[CoSA_DaveS]

Ah, I didn't realize you were talking about the temp project when saving a puppet. We could indeed create that inside the system temp directory, though that would create a performance problem when you're saving on the non-boot volume. But most people are probably using the boot drive, so it would nicely avoid the syncing issues you're seeing when exporting to a synced folder in that case.

> because Ch opened it and immediately began the process of saving, then it obliterated everything

Ch never obliterates anything intentionally, so if you can reproduce that we'd love to fix it. Though it will indeed start writing to any project that you open, ALL changes are non-destructive, including project updates from an earlier version of the app. And even if you undo 50 times, then make a change which clears the Redo history, you can still get back to any of those 50 states by showing the History panel and choosing Show Auto-saved Versions. The most recent auto-save will contain all 50 redos. An auto-save is also created any time you open the project.

History panel menu

The only times you can't get back to your previous state is when you save over an artwork file that Ch is referencing. The old artwork is gone in that case. To avoid that problem, you can Save As from PS/AI to a new file and then repoint the puppet to the new file by clicking on the puppet in the project panel and then clicking the file path in the properties panel.