Pixel Projects doesn't capture tabs that are adjacent to the main workspace

[shanianickel]

Hello! I'm not sure if this is more of a bug report or a feature request.
99% of the time when I'm working I have some files open in the main area, and others that I drag and drop to the left or right, like so:

In using various Pixel Projects buttons I'm finding that these side-tabs do not seem to be processed by the extension.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour:

1. Open some Aseprite files
2. Click and drag one of the tabs away from the top to open it in a side panel
3. In Pixel Projects hit Edit Projects -> Update + Close Project
4. Note that the file open in a side panel was not closed
5. Also note that in Edit Projects window our side file is not saved in the project file list

Expected behaviour:
All open files are captured when saving.

System Information:

• Operating System: Windows 11
• Aseprite Version: 1.3.14-beta1
• Tool + Tool Version: Pixel Projects v.1.0.0

I'm not sure if this would be super difficult to fix and I can learn to work around it, just wanted to share in case it's helpful!

[CarbsCode]

Well hello familiar face! Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together Alina! Unfortunately as of current released build v1.0.0 this is in fact working as initially intended. Is it how I wanted it to work in the end? Eh not exactly. I went in to this project while working with Lesma and absolutely wanted to get the sub windows / views working. Working meaning that they would be able to be saved and loaded back up in to the same place they were when they were saved.

I did take a bunch of time trying to sort out this functionality but sadly I could not get it to behave correctly and reliably. There is actually quite a bit of error checking going on on the back end to make this work so well and reliably ( Oh boy the edge cases). I am absolutely still thinking about how this can be done and really want to add this in as soon as I can in a future update.

A couple of the problems I am facing:

1. There doesn't seem to be a way currently to select a tab in a sub window automatically via code in the Aseprite API. The way I am grabbing each tabs file location is using the home page as a loop point. Essentially starting at the home page and looping though each tab, if it hits the home tab more then once it has done a full loop and all the files information is collected and ready to store in the settings file. This is why currently it only works with tabs open in the main window. A work around I thought about is letting the user select a tab in the sub window and then add them to the project file. This would essentially loop though each tab much like the main window but use the tab selected as a loop point instead. This might be unreliable though and would def need to be put though some extra testing to make sure it's working correctly.

2. I also couldn't find a way that will let me specify where to open a sub window (bottom or side etc) and it's size (though there might be some hacky ways I'm thinking about doing this such as selecting a tab and opening in a sub window / view (if that is possible) , then proceed with the rest of the files in that window. Again it gets a little unreliable and would need some extra testing and fiddling about.

So yes! I do hope to some day add in support for the sub windows / views but unfortunately it adds a lot of extra complexity when it comes to the system in place and working with what is available currently.

A work around in the meantime would be to grab the tabs in the sub window / views and bring them in to the main window before saving the project file. Of course this also means pulling them from the main window when loading up the project again as well. I do wish I was able to get this before releasing but it turned out way more complicated then I thought ha

Again thank you so much for this bug / feature request and in general your feedback is really apricated!
I hope to come back in the future with some updates on this as soon as I figure out a way to get it working though it might take some time D:

[shanianickel]

Oh wow! Hello to you, too!

I was wondering if this might have been due to a limitation with Aseprite's API... To be honest it sounds like too much of a pain to implement, unless the Aseprite dev team updates their API to better support this kind of feature.

The workaround you suggested is totally fine in my opinion! Mainly I'm happy to hear this is expected behaviour, and not something chaotic on my end (historically, I am an evil software user)
Thank you, I appreciate your detailed explanation!

[CarbsCode]

Your quite welcome :) Sometimes (alot of times) I end up having to do hacky workarounds to achieve many of the extra features I put in to my tools. For the most part it's creating a system that some how hooks in to what it is I'm trying to do even if that is not the intended function of the api. The looping though all the tabs above could be a good example. Surely someday this might became a prebuilt table of open files to access (that would be really nice) but for now I have to work with what I am given and do what I can come up with little work arounds sometimes.

Now even though I used the term hacky I end up spending a lot of time making sure the user experience is the best it can be and all the weird edge cases get handled... well as best I can. I'm sure it is possible to break things if going extremely fast but I guess that is bound to happen.

Choas can be great for figuring out some issues and good stress test on things as a whole though sometimes it is very tricky to debug too!

I need to learn more C, then I could just implement these needed features for Aseprite's API would be great to have more functionality though I def understand how tricky it can be to add more features.