Animation Editor Screenshots

Animation Editor — Documentation Screenshots

Headless PNG capture of the Animation Editor's UI, for illustrating documentation pages (Timing, Offsets, Collision, etc.) — not for verifying behavior. For correctness tests, use animation-editor-testing. For WASM browser smoke (not a Core/App mirror), see animation-editor-browser-verify. The DocScreenshots project shares plumbing with App.Tests (TestServices, CreateMainWindow, [AvaloniaFact]) but serves a different purpose — keep scenario code in the project matching its purpose.

Where, and why it's a separate project

tools/AnimationEditorAvalonia/tests/AnimationEditor.DocScreenshots/ — a separate headless project from AnimationEditor.App.Tests, not a folder inside it. Full rationale in tools/AnimationEditorAvalonia/docs/DOC_SCREENSHOT_HARNESS_DECISION.md.

Landmine — it must stay separate. Real pixel capture needs AvaloniaHeadlessPlatformOptions.UseHeadlessDrawing = false (see this project's TestAppBuilder.cs), set at the assembly level. AnimationEditor.App.Tests defaults that to true (a no-op drawing recorder, for speed) across its ~90 files, none of which need real pixels. Moving screenshot code into that project, or flipping its default, would either silently produce blank PNGs there or slow down the whole correctness suite.

Capturing

ScreenshotCapture.Capture(visual, outputPath) — pass a Window/dialog (TopLevel) for full chrome, or any Control (e.g. window.FindControl<Control>("AnimTree")) to crop to just that control's bounds. Built on TopLevel.CaptureRenderedFrame(), not a hand-rolled RenderTargetBitmap.Render(visual) — the latter silently writes an empty PNG under headless (see the decision doc).

Default to capturing the whole window, not a cropped control. A screenshot showing only one panel strips the viewer's frame of reference for where that panel sits in the app. Crop to a specific control only when the user explicitly asks to see just that panel.

Driving a scenario shares animation-editor-testing's gotchas

Building chain/frame/selection state to screenshot uses the same TestServices/CreateMainWindow pattern as correctness tests — read animation-editor-testing's "Service wiring in tests" section first, especially: assign ProjectManager.AnimationChainListSave (and add chains/frames) after window.Show() + Dispatcher.UIThread.RunJobs(), never before. MainWindow.OnOpened replaces it with a blank instance otherwise, silently discarding anything set up earlier.

Critical, no exceptions — create chains/frames through AppCommands, not by new-ing model objects by hand. This applies to every screenshot, including one-off ad hoc requests (see below) — there is no "just this once, it's throwaway" exception. A screenshot's whole point is to show what a real user would actually see; new AnimationFrameSave { TextureName = "x.png" } leaves every other field at its bare type default (FrameLength = 0f), which is a state the app itself is incapable of producing — a real "Add Frame" always goes through AppCommands.AddFrame, which sets FrameLength = 0.1f, full-texture UVs, and a ShapesSave. Same principle for chains: use AppCommands.AddAnimationChainWithName, not new AnimationChainSave. These commands also fire the same tree-refresh/selection events a live click would, so a Dispatcher.UIThread.RunJobs() after each is usually all the wiring you need — no reflecting into private MainWindow methods. A hand-built chain also leaves the tree/inspector empty even when the wireframe itself renders correctly (nothing was ever added to ProjectManager.AnimationChainListSave) — an empty tree next to real content is itself a sign the scenario was hand-built instead of driven through commands.

This only covers creation. Once a chain/frame exists with real defaults, hand-setting a specific field the scenario needs to illustrate (frame.RelativeX = 4, frame.FlipHorizontal = true) is normal and expected — AppCommands has no method for every property, and the point is realistic defaults, not that every field must trace back to a command. Prefer a command when one exists for the edit itself (e.g. AppCommands.MoveChain over reordering the list by hand); fall back to direct field assignment for whatever a command doesn't cover.

Landmine — ProjectManager.FileName must point at a real directory once you're driving state through selection instead of calling WireframeCtrl.LoadTexture directly. Selecting a chain/frame (SelectedState.SelectedChain/SelectedFrame) routes through MainWindow.SyncTextureCombo, which only resolves a relative TextureName into an absolute path — and loads it — when ProjectManager.FileName is non-empty (achxFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(FileName)); with FileName left null, the wireframe silently blanks instead of erroring. Set ProjectManager.FileName = Path.Combine(dir, "demo.achx") where dir is the folder actually holding the texture (the established test pattern — see GridRenderTests/ChainSwitchTests). Don't point FileName at manual-test-content directly: AddChainCommand/AddFrameCommand call SaveCurrentAnimationChainList() on every add, which writes a real .achx to FileName's folder — copy the fixture PNG into a scratch temp dir instead and point FileName there.

Use real texture fixtures, not a generated placeholder

tools/AnimationEditorAvalonia/manual-test-content/characters/characters.png — a real, good-looking 736×128 sprite sheet (32×32 grid, 23 cols × 4 rows: row 0 monk, row 1 knight, row 2 rogue, row 3 slime — see that folder's README for exact cell coordinates). Prefer this over generating a solid-color placeholder square for a texture — screenshots should look like something a real game would actually use. Every frame cropped from it must be exactly one 32×32 cell unless the scenario explicitly calls for a different crop — don't cross cell boundaries or crop mid-cell. Add more fixtures under manual-test-content/ (following its existing README convention) as scenarios need different content (tilesets, larger sheets, transparency).

Ad hoc "take a screenshot of X" requests

For a one-off request (not a permanent doc-page scenario), hand-edit a scratch file like _ScratchCapture.cs in this project — a single [AvaloniaFact] test that builds the scenario and calls ScreenshotCapture.Capture. Don't add one-off requests to DocScreenshotManifest (DocScreenshotGeneratorTests.cs) — that manifest is for scenarios a real doc page will regenerate repeatedly. "Ad hoc" relaxes where the test lives, not how the scenario is built — the AppCommands/FileName landmines above still apply in full.

Iterate fast: dotnet build tests/AnimationEditor.DocScreenshots/...csproj, then run the built .exe -method "AnimationEditor.DocScreenshots._ScratchCapture.Capture" directly — faster than dotnet test for one scenario, and its Console.WriteLine output is visible, unlike dotnet test's VSTest adapter which swallows it on failure.

Write output via ScreenshotOutput.ResolveFeatureDir("<feature>") → tools/AnimationEditorAvalonia/tests/_out/<feature>/ (not a temp dir you delete). Open with Invoke-Item, then Read the PNG yourself before showing the user.

Feature proof (History / undo labels / similar)

When the ask is "prove the panel shows X" — not a unit assert:

1. Put the drive script in AnimationEditor.Core.Demo.FeatureDemos (internal, test/DocScreenshots only). Call FeatureDemos.TryRun(...) from _ScratchCapture — do not hand-build history rows or fork a second script, and do not wire demos into shipping App/MainWindow.
2. Drive real AppCommands / UndoManager.Execute. Never assign fake HistoryEntryVm text.
3. Select History (SidebarTabs → HistoryTab), optionally enlarge LeftPanelGrid row 2 so more labels fit, capture window + HistoryScrollViewer, write labels.txt from UndoManager.UndoHistory.
4. Optional browser PNG: animation-editor-browser-verify (temporary local hook only — revert before merge).