The Quick Pitch
Exporting is getting complex… fast. At times it feels a little unmanageable.
As exporting gets more complex, it may be helpful to shift to making exporting more a part of the project. It would be nice to be able to create and save “export profiles” in an aseprite file. Opening an aseprite file would then load all export profiles previously saved with it. These could then be executed individually or all at once.
Detailed how-it-might-work
Imagine you go to file > exports… and it brings up a window where you can manage export profiles for that file. In a new file, this list is empty. Click “add export profile.” This brings up a dialog that shows a list of export templates you could start from. These templates are default ones aseprite provided, or ones you have saved on a global level. Select the one close to what you need, then click “add and edit.” This opens the template edit view. Change any settings you need to, then “save.” Back on the list view, you see the export profile in the list now. Either click “Run selected export” or “Run all exports.” to export using that profile, or all profiles respectively. Made one small change to the file? Click “Run all exports” to re-export with each set of settings. No need to go in and re-export by hand with each set of settings.
All export profiles would be saved into the ‘.aseprite’ file. If you close the file, then re-open it, those exports are there. If you share the file with a co-worker, they get the export settings along with it. Add as many export profiles as you want. Need an export for just half the layers? Add an export profile that exports just those. Need an export that runs a script? Create a profile that does that, all without messing up any export profiles you have so carefully set up for your other needs.
How I, personally, would use it most
I realize some people may not need this feature, so the quick export dialog would be maintained. I would get a huge amount of use out of this, though. When creating characters for my video game, I like to work in one large file, then export it to 4+ different sprite sheets. For example, my player has a separate sprite sheet for his legs and arms so they can be animated separately. That means I have to export “player_legs” and “player_arms”. I also like to animate all the player’s SFX and weapon effects in the same file. That’s another n exports. With the current setup of exports, one small tweak can result in 10+ minutes of re-exporting and verifying that I got the settings right.