question for the devs: what clipboard format does Fusion use?

This is a question that I presume only the programmers of Fusion can answer - though of course if anyone else knows, please pipe in.

What clipboard format does Fusion use when you copy/paste an action or a condition (note: I'm not talking about the new feature that converts an entire event into text form when you hit ctrl-C on an entire event)?

I've recently started using a clipboard manager program called Ditto which remembers multiple snippets that you've copied and pasted and lets you re-copy/paste them at will. You can pin frequently-pasted items to the top of the list, you can give certain snippets their own hotkeys, and other very useful stuff like that (how I wish I had discovered this 10 years ago!).

It supports multiple clipboard formats, such as images for example. It would be super useful to be able to store Fusion actions or conditions too (eg. imagine being able to add only once when event loops or for each object ("group.Enemies") with a single hotkey or two mouse clicks). Below is a list of all the clipboard types that it comes with. I've tried installing all of these, but Ditto still doesn't recognise Fusion actions/conditions when I copy them. There's also a "CustomClipboard Type" option, where you can enter something in a text field, but I'm not sure what format it expects. It also allows you to enter Please login to see this link.that is to be run every time you copy/paste something.

I know this is probably a long shot, but is there any way to get Ditto to understand the clipboard format Fusion uses for actions/conditions?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

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Fantastic! It works! Ditto only records generic names for the actions and conditions, so the snippets all look the same on the Ditto clipboard, but that doesn't really matter as you can easily rename them.

This is awesome. My preferred way of working in Fusion has always been to grab object icons from the event list editor and drag them onto new actions/conditions (or copy/paste duplicates of existing actions/conditions) and make new events that way, rather than having to start every event from scratch, locating each object one by one in the popup dialog. But of course the objects you want to use aren't always nearby, and Fusion won't let you drag them onto the Event List Editor from the Workspace toolbar. But now, thanks to Ditto and the 'secret codes' from Yves above, I can create this event anywhere I like with a hotkey, and all my most frequently-used objects are there ready to be dragged:

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Also, I've always wished that I was more organised with color-coding comments, to minimise the time I spend each day getting lost in my 6000+ events. But changing comment colors has always been too time-consuming for me to do it with any kind of consistency and discipline. But now I can have a readymade bank of differently styled comments ready to paste whenever I want. Thanks [MENTION=5114]Yves[/MENTION], you've made my day

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No, I don't think you can modify events. You can modify their descriptions though to make them easy to search for within Ditto

Oh, that's not a real event. That's just a 'fake' event that contains all my most-used objects. So I can just paste that fake event whenever, and quickly 'grab' objects from it by dragging them from it.

If you want to see a really obnoxious event, this one is my particular favourite. I probably couldn't tell you exactly what it does even if my life depended on it :o:

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By the way, I now use Ditto in conjunction with a Stream Deck, which is a (physical) configurable macro button device. It's amazing. I now can insert all sorts of conditions/actions/events/text snippets just by pressing a button:

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Some of the buttons (eg. "Str$()") just type a piece of text. But others (eg. "For each loop") are mapped to a hotkey that pastes a Fusion event from Ditto's saved clipboard. Stream decks aren't cheap, but this is one of the best productivity improvements I've ever made.

Quote from Christian_Wheel

My mind is truly blown!

Great idea using the streamdeck btw. I just picked up an XL and this is such a great use case, I'll have to set it up!

oh, awesome! Do yourself a big favour and get the Please login to see this link. plugins for the Streamdeck. They're more powerful and dependable than some of the default functions. In particular, get SuperMacro, which gives you much more control over macros, and doesn't insert unnecessary pauses between keypresses like the default functions sometimes do.

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You can use an auto-hotkey script that will right-click and navigate to the menus using arrow keys to select the child event or use mouse position and click. The script is fairly easy to understand and chatGPT can make it for you.
If you look into Vonaiskra photo of his stream deck he does have child event button but must right-click first. Perhaps a combination of right click using Bar Raider and then launching the shortcut for child event?

Requiring the right-click is by design, as a precaution. My macro creates a dummy 'always' child event, then immediately deletes it, so that I can start making the child event I actually want. Therefore, the macro contains a delete keypress. So if I don't put the mouse cursor in the right place, or it slips as I press the StreamDeck button, the macro could accidentally delete who-knows-what. Requiring a right-click helps ensure that the macro will be activated in the correct spot. I don't find it very inconvenient to have to right-click - the real inconvenience is having to move the mouse cursor to the correct spot in the first place, but this is unavoidable in any case. Since I have to move the mouse cursor already, right-clicking is not really any more work.

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Volnaiskra: Has anything changed in your workflow since then? I'm thinking of using Stream Deck with Fusion pairing with auto-hotkey and not sure if I'll find Ditto that much useful. Sure I can paste "always" "loop" and "group" stuff but Fusion already can insert events with a hotkey and I'd have to search for the object I need in any case. From your photo of stream deck it looks like most of the stuff you use Ditto for can be made using BarRaider plugin with StreamDeck without Ditto's aid. Any update is appreciated.

I use AHK a lot too (in case you haven't seen it, I posted some useful AHK snippets Please login to see this link.). But I definitely use Ditto extensively with the StreamDeck, whenever a macro requires the use of a specific object/event rather than a generic one.

For example, my input system has an altVal called modifiersPressed that keeps track of whether alt/shift/ctrl are pressed (if ctrl is pressed it's 1, if shift is pressed it's 10, if both shift & ctrl are pressed it's 11, etc.) I use this quite a lot, and with StreamDeck+Ditto I can paste the condition with a button press, instead of having to find the object then find the altVal each time. This is specific to me, but I'm sure you also have particular altVals in specific objects that you use a lot.

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I also use it to paste various 'dummy' actions that I've saved in Ditto. The action refers to a dummy object, but it only takes half a second to replace it with the object I actually want (which is usually nearby and ready to be dragged). For example, to add translucency to an object, I'd normally have to create a new action, search for the correct object, navigate to "Effect", then navigate to "Set alpha coefficient". Or I can just do this:

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The above would be tricky and probably quite unreliable to achieve with StreamDeck alone. I have similar StreamDeck buttons for rgb, bring to front, and reappear (in both Active Object & String Object variants):

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I've always found setting up For Each loops quite tedious. So I also have a button that pastes the following event, which contains a readymade forEach action and condition. Then I can just drag the action and condition to where I want, and replace their icons with the appropriate objects:

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I also use StreamDeck+Ditto for all of my comments. I find that using different colors and sizes of comments makes my code better organised and more readable. For example, the picture on the left gives a clearer sense of hierarchy:

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But changing the color and/or size of every comment I make would be horribly tedious. So I just have a bunch of StreamDeck buttons that paste preset comments I've stored in Ditto. If I press a button while holding CTRL, it will produce a larger comment (eg. the Orange button produces the hotkey alt-shift-7; in Ditto is stored a small orange comment linked to alt-shift-7 and a large orange comment linked to ctrl-alt-shift-7):

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This includes comments that go within conditions and actions (using the Advanced Comment Object), which I can use for dividers, explanatory notes, headings, and so on:

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I find that one of the quickest techniques when debugging is to play sounds. If I add the following action to an event...

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...I'll be able to hear if the event triggers or not, and whether it triggers once or multiple times. I don't have to worry about keeping my eyes glued to a counter, or that it will turn to 1 for one frame but then return to 0 before I've had time to notice it. And if I use sufficiently different sounds like beep, ding, bang, frog, I can easily keep track of 4 different things, while my eyes are free to observe whatever else they need to. This is a super quick and easy tool for debugging code, but only because I can create the actions instantly with button presses thanks to StreamDeck+Ditto:

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I'm using your Productiva skin for years. The colors is really easy on my eyes

Reading this puts a smile on my face

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haha the dummy object is a nice touch. I assume you have it on all frames but even if you don't it will appear with that tiny arrow in the lower left corner that indicate the object isn't in the frame but you could drag anyways. Well thought.

Yes, that's right. It just appears with an arrow. Even if I paste it into a new MFA.

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You mentioned you use F14 key in the auto hotkey thread. Just out of curiosity which keyboard do you use? Mine goes to F12 only.

My keyboard is Please login to see this link.. But the crux is actually not how many keys it has, but the fact that it supports QMK, which is a type of firmware that lets you remap any of the keys however you like. So I have a few special keys on it that I've mapped to things like F14, F18, F23, mainly because most programs don't use them and therefore won't reserve or interfere with them.

One of the best things I've done with my keyboard is move the F1-F10 to the numpad, and in their place put keys like "$()./*. When you think about it, the standard keyboard layout is absolutely terrible for programming. Why are the operators - + / * spread out all over the keyboard? And why do you need to press shift for some and not others? Why does frequently-used "+" require shift while rarely-used "=" doesn't? Why is the decimal point so far away from the numbers? And what use is having a numpad if you keep having to move your hands 20cm to reach the frequently-used brackets keys?

So I've rearranged it like this, which makes working in the expression editor much more pleasant. All 4 operators are next to each other. The decimal point is right next to the 0. No shift is necessary for ( ) " or $.

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