Bug? I can see the liquid shape options, no matter what I do.

[jayfaker]

Hi, I'm on Moho 14 and I can't seem to get the liquid shapes options to show up.

I make a shape. I make a second shape that's on top of the first shape. I select the second shape, and fill and stroke options are on the top bar, but no shape blending options. Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Jim

iMac 2020, MacOS Monteray 12.6.7

[Greenlaw]

That sounds strange. The Liquid Shapes options should be visible even if you have only one shape in the layer. I'm wondering, could there be a Select Shape mod active that's interfering with the native Moho 14 Select Shape tool? If this info doesn't help, can you post the file?

FYI, the rules for Liquid Shapes are...

1. All of the shapes need to be in the same layer.
2. The Shape Selection tool is used to access Liquid Shapes.
3. The effect can't be applied to the bottom shape
4. The effect can be applied to any or all of the upper shapes.
5. The curves in a shape don't need to be contiguous. For example, if I draw two or more circular curves and select them all to create a single shape, Liquid Shapes can be applied to all of the circles as a single instance. I'm finding some interesting applications for this technique.
6. If you delete a shape with Liquid Shapes applied and recreate it using the same curve, the effect needs to be reapplied. In other words, the effect is applied to the shape, not the curve.

[Greenlaw]

Another possibility: Make sure the Select Shape tool is active and not Create Shape. You will not see the Liquid Shapes options with the Create Shape tool.

[jayfaker]

hmmm.... that's what I'm doing. I remember reading somewhere some people talking about old scripts messing up the new Moho? I dunno. I'll try reinstalling in a bit and see if that changes anything, or installing on Windows on bootcamp if that doesn't work.

Thanks Greenlaw,

Jim

[Greenlaw]

Just point the content folder to a empty folder. It will generate a clean directory structure so you can test without third-party scripts.

I like to name this folder something like 'Moho 14 Default', and keep this version available to switch to when I see something odd happening.

Another option is to make a folder in your scripts folder called something like 'disabled'. You can drag any scripts you want to temporarily disable there. After dragging the scripts to this folder, press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+L to reload the scripts, and Moho will ignore the ones dragged into that folder. To get those scripts back, just drag them out of that folder.

The first option is better if you need to disable everything, including menu and layer scripts. The second method is best if you only want to disable one or a few tool scripts.

[EricTheFish]

I had this same issue when I added all my usual scripts to v14. I've been using Synthsin's Create Shape and Select Shape tool mod scripts with 13.5.5 which override the standard tools.
I removed the scripts and then the Liquid Profile merge buttons appeared.

[Greenlaw]

Yeah, that's one of the risks with mods...when the native tool is updated, the mod won't reflect these changes.

When the mod is simple enough, I like to copy/paste the mod code into a copy of the new tool's script and save that as a new mod in my custom content folder. So far, I have done that successfully for one of the Moho 14 tools but completely failed with another one.

Of course, there's no guarantee that the next update won't change the script again. Sometimes, the mod may even become unnecessary because of a tool update. So, if you use mods, you need to stay on top of things. (I like to keep searchable notes for things like this...especially now since the Search feature in this website is still broken.)

[jayfaker]

Okay, I reinstalled and liquid shapes work now. Super cool stuff, though I hope we don't have to wait two years to get liquid shapes that don't pop around with variable width strokes. That improvement alone would add so much to Moho.

I guess it would be called "liquid strokes" because the strokes themselves would have soft blending.

[Greenlaw]

One last tip for anyone still following along...

A way to check if you have a tool mod installed is to...

1. Open your Custom Content Folder (File>Open Custom Content Folder)
2. Open the Scripts>Tools folder
3. Look for any scripts that begin with lm_

lm_ is short for Lost Marble, and its presence in your Custom Content means it was added to override the native version of the tool, presumedly with modified code. In other words, it's a tool mod.

Create a folder called something like _inactive or _disabled in the Tools folder, and move the lm_ scripts to this folder. This will ensure you're running the latest native versions of the tools for Moho 14 because Moho will ignore anything placed in a folder.

If you're confident that your third-party mods are more recent than the tools that came with Moho 14, you may try adding them back. The way to check is to find the original tools scripts in your Program folder and compare the dates. This is no guarantee that the mod is fully compatible with Moho 14, but you can try it and see what happens.

In general, it's a bad idea to blindly add old tool mods or any third-party script to a new version of Moho. For example, there may have been changes made to Moho scripting that make some scripts incompatible, or new native scripts may have been created that make old scripts unnecessary. In some cases, a popular third-party script may have been integrated with the latest Moho and probably improved. (SimplSam's SVG importer is an example of this...if you have Moho 14, you don't need to add this script.)

When you install a brand-new version of Moho, get familiar with the new version without the use of third-party scripts. If you feel you still need some scripts, test each script one by one to be sure you're not breaking Moho with old incompatible code.

Also note that alternative versions of tools by third parties, that don't start with lm_ are installed as separate tools in the Tools window, so you can have both the native version and the 'mod' version active at the same time. (This is not a true 'mod,' but it avoids the possibility of overriding newer versions of native tools.)

Hope this helps.

[synthsin75]

Just for some more background on lm_ named scripts. Some writers use them to make it easier to replace the stock tool. IMO, that's not a good reason to use the lm prefix.

For my create/select shape tools, I had to use the lm prefix, because certain behaviors of the stock tools are only available if you use those script names. It's not ideal, and I wish I didn't have to do it.

[Greenlaw]

Thanks for the insight, Wes!

It helps to understand what's going on under the hood.