v0.8.2 — Tooltips, messages and steps

New

• Tooltips with a tail: every tooltip in MSL Tools is now a rounded bubble pointing at what it explains — a bold name, the keyboard shortcut drawn as keys, and a line or two on what it does, in the colors of your theme. The tools in the sidebar say what each one is for (and what its badge means right now). Rename, Controls, Playblast and Labels inside Maya show theirs the same way; Maya's own tooltips stay as they are.
• Short messages in the window: things worth noticing appear for a few seconds at the bottom right of the window, with one button for what to do about them:
  • Scenes › Paths after replacing paths — with Undo;
  • a Maya that ended unexpectedly — wherever you are in MSL Tools, with Show to its log;
  • Media results ready while another tool is open — with Open Media;
  • variables copied to another environment in Maya Gate.
    Hover one to keep it; it goes away by itself.
• Scenes › Render: the job at work shows its steps — Read, Open, Render, Video — ticked as they pass; a failure is marked on the step where it happened, and while the video is being made the card says so.

Improved

• Waiting is visible: a small spinner turns while What's new loads, while Media reads a video or an image sequence, and while Scenes › Paths reads, writes or puts back scenes.

Fixed

• Playblast (inside Maya): the window didn't open — a broken line in one of its tooltips kept it from loading.

v0.8.1 — The taskbar icon

Fixed

• MSL Tools on the taskbar: the button now and then showed Windows' blank default icon instead of the MSL Tools one. The window and everything it falls back to now carry the MSL Tools icon, and a button already drawn blank is redrawn once the hub has started.

Improved

• Pinned to the taskbar: a pinned MSL Tools button starts MSL Tools (it pinned a bare Python before).
• The MSL Tools icon is sharp at every size — the desktop shortcut, Alt+Tab, the taskbar.

v0.8.0 — Labels and MSL Scripts

New

• Labels (MSL menu › Labels, Maya 2025 and newer): attribute values shown live in the viewport — a column of "label value" lines under a header, fixed in a corner of the screen or standing next to an object and following it. Values read the way the Channel Box says them: an enum by its name, angles and lengths in the scene's units.
• Labels: a line's color and opacity can follow its value — a gradient over a range, smooth or in steps ("red from 1.2 on").
• Labels: the size is either Maya's own interface size (Manual) or a part of the picture (Auto) — then every playblast size and every machine get the same picture, whatever the screen's scaling.
• Labels: one layout fits every copy of a rig — build it for a namespace, keep it as a saved layout or a file, read it back from the scene; lines come from the channels picked in the Channel Box, a column is mirrored to the other side in one click. The window sketches the picture: drag a column to where it should stand.
• Playblast: a Labels switch in the PICTURE card hides them for the playblast only; the Client preset leaves them out.
• MSL Scripts: one key = one thing done, no window. Every script is a command in Hotkey Editor › Custom Scripts › MSL Scripts (no key given — you choose yours) and an entry in the MSL menu under Scripts:
  • Ortho View / Camera Back — the camera under the pointer to an orthographic view of the side it faces, and back to the perspective it had;
  • Reset Attributes — picked Graph Editor keys, else picked Channel Box channels (any section, shapes too), else the selection's move / rotate / scale; a default_<name> attribute wins; one undo step;
  • Curves / Polygons / Joints / Locators On / Off and Geometry Only (again = back to what was shown) — Shift held: every viewport;
  • Locators on Selection, Locator in the Middle, Joints on Selection, and the Controls tool's quick actions.
• Assistant: "Open / new scenes without asking (until restart)" in the robot's menu — for developing; saving, closing Maya and deleting files are still asked about.

Improved

• Labels with the shot mask: labels in a screen corner stay inside the mask's frame, between its bars.
• Scenes › Paths: Clear backups moves the .bak copies to the Recycle Bin (the ones the last replace can be undone from stay).
• Scenes › Paths: reading and writing many scenes shows how far it is, with Stop — every scene already done is kept.
• Paths to variables in the open scene: the referenced files are listed with how many files they name that are missing, by folder.

v0.7.1 — Paths to variables in the open scene

New

• Paths to variables in the open scene: the session's ⋯ menu in Maya Gate (and a right click on the scene's name) has "Paths to variables… (N)" — N is how many paths of that Maya's scene could use a variable. It opens a table: tick the paths to swap, pick the variable for each where several fit (the most exact is picked for you), "All ticked" sets one for all. Maya checks every choice; the scene isn't saved.
• Paths a reference holds are listed by file — a rig's textures belong to the rig, not to the scene. "Fix them in those files…" opens them in Scenes › Paths and looks for their missing files at once (a rig written with another machine's D:/… gets $WG_ANIM/…).
• Inside Maya: MSL › Scene › Paths to Variables (and a hotkey command, MSLPathsToVariables) does the same for the open scene with Maya's own dialog.
• Maya Gate › Scene: "When a scene opens, say so if its paths could use a variable" — a warning in Maya and in the hub's log, nothing is changed.
• Scenes › Paths: a path under several variables can be written through any of them — right click its row to pick one, or leave the path as it is.

Improved

• Paths to variables: references are reloaded before the attributes change, so one Ctrl+Z puts the attributes back (reloading a reference empties Maya's undo queue — the dialog says so).

Fixed

• Maya Gate › Sessions: the paths window could take the hub down a moment after it closed when the scene had nothing of its own to swap.

v0.7.0 — Scenes: Render and Paths

New

• Scenes: one tool for many Maya scenes at once, with Maya closed. Batch is its Render tab now; the new Paths tab sits beside it.
• Scenes › Paths: absolute paths in scenes become Maya Gate's variables — E:/branches/Animation/... turns into $WG_ANIM/... — for a whole folder of scenes in one go. Textures, references, a reference's edits and other file attributes are found; you see "before → after" for every path, and each scene is copied aside (.bak) before it is written.
• Scenes › Paths: .ma scenes are rewritten as text — only the folder at a path's start changes, every other byte stays. .mb scenes are opened and saved by a Maya without a window — always the version they were saved with.
• Scenes › Paths: Find missing looks for missing files by their name in the variables' folders (and folders you add) and writes the path through the variable. When several files share the name, you pick one.
• Scenes › Paths: Undo last replace puts the scenes back from their copies — a scene saved again since is left alone.
• Scenes › Paths: a warning where a variable your scenes depend on isn't set — in which Maya Gate environments, in Windows, in every Maya.env Maya reads — and a Maya.env line that looks meant for it but doesn't work ($NAME = …, a ; at the end) is named.
• Maya Gate › Scene: per environment, what new scenes start with — frame rate, playback range, units, up axis — and, set when Maya starts, playback speed, the tangents of new keys and auto key. Everything stays "As is" until you choose.
• Maya Gate › Scene: when a scene opens, you're told if it or a reference is at another frame rate. Nothing in the scene is changed.

Improved

• Scenes › Render: a job whose check found missing textures, caches or references links to Paths, which looks for them right away.
• Scenes › Render: "Check its paths" in a job's menu works for .mb scenes too.

Fixed

• Scenes › Render: the queue used only half of its card, so an unfolded job was cut off.

v0.6.0 — Assistant: Claude works with your Mayas

New

• Assistant: a coding assistant (Claude Code and others, through our own MCP server) can work with the Mayas started from MSL Tools — see which are running, read what their Script Editors report, look at a viewport or at one of our windows inside Maya, read a launch report, and ask what a scene or one node holds.
• Assistant: when you allow it, it also runs Python in those Mayas, reloads msl_tools there, starts a Maya from the hub and closes one. Maya still refuses to close with unsaved changes. Long work runs as a background job.
• Assistant: its switch is the robot's head in the window's header. A click switches it on or off; a right click chooses "Look only" or "Look and run Python". The robot shows the mode: grey and asleep when off, a grin and a green antenna when it may act, a dot while an assistant is connected, looking around while its code runs.
• Assistant: "Connect a coding assistant…" (right click on the robot) gives the one line for Claude Code, writes .mcp.json into a project folder, or shows the settings for other assistants.
• Assistant: three guards. Before code that saves, opens or closes a scene or deletes files, MSL Tools asks you (unanswered in two minutes = refused). The environments it may act in are ticked in the robot's menu, and a single Maya can be closed to it from its row's menu. Everything it did is written to a journal ("Show the journal of what it did").
• Controls: a pose pasted mirrored onto the other side — from the saved poses or from Paste's right-click menu.

Improved

• Maya Gate: the Sessions console works in every environment, not only Dev.
• Maya Gate: the Maya link is shown on Maya Gate's sidebar tile — a green count of the connected Mayas, a red one when a Maya reported an error you haven't seen (a click opens Sessions). The green dot in the header is gone.
• Controls: the Control card lost its Zero and Drive rows — the line under Create is those settings now: the zero block and the round mark open their menus, a group is typed in place, "+" adds one. With a control selected, a "this / new" switch at the line's start shows what it is tied into or what Create would make on it. The line stands still on Drive = Shape.
• Controls: the name field lists its tokens on a right click and can go back to the default; edit-CVs moved into the Selected card's second row.

Fixed

• Controls: submenus could be deleted before they were shown (and Maya could crash on exit).

v0.5.1 — Controls: groups, hotkeys, saved poses

New

• Controls: hotkey commands that work without the window — mirror, zero, select the controls, copy and paste a pose, match, reset (Hotkey Editor > Custom Scripts > MSL Tools).
• Controls: poses saved under a name in Transforms — a click puts one onto the selection.

Improved

• Controls: the Selected card takes two rows instead of four. Its actions sit in six groups; a group shows the action used last, a click repeats it, its corner or a right click opens the rest. Step, angle, factor and line width are under one "steps" button.

v0.5.0 — Controls

New

• Controls — a new tool inside Maya (MSL menu > Controls, Maya 2025+) for rig controls:
  • a library of 89 shapes with your own favorites, a live preview of what Create will make, and a ghost of it in the viewport;
  • controls on objects, vertices, edges and faces, with zero groups or an offset matrix, driving by constraints or by a matrix;
  • a shape editor: points moved, turned and scaled with a manipulator, exact numbers, a curve taken from the scene and put back;
  • tools for selected controls: turn, resize, replace, mirror to the other side (also as a live link), locators and joints on the selection;
  • Color: Maya's palette, your own and saved colors, a color tried on under the pointer, marks that say where the selection is colored;
  • Channels and Attributes: lock and hide channels, attributes as rows with sliders, renamed and reordered in place, copied between objects, saved as sets;
  • Transforms: one grid of channels for match, reset and freeze, a pose copied as text and pasted in another Maya, values carried from one side of a rig to the other;
  • cards shown from the window's header, dragged into your own order, and saved as named layouts.

Improved

• Rename: each problem in the list has its own small icon instead of a dot.
• Rename: a click on a card's heading only folds it; the header's button shows and hides it.
• No scroll bar flashing while a window follows its content.

v0.4.0 — English in Maya, a compact Rename

New

• English in Maya (Maya Gate, the EN button beside the environments) — while a Maya started from the hub is the active window, the keyboard is English, so Maya's hotkeys work; leaving Maya gives the next window its layout back. Right click: English only — no other layout can be used inside Maya at all. Per environment, on by default, from the next launch.
• Rename — the list:
  • a tree on Hierarchy: indents and fold arrows (folded rows are still renamed)
  • problem dots after a name — the same name elsewhere in the scene, a bad or Maya's own name (group7, pasted__), off the naming convention, a shape not named after its transform; a click on a dot fixes that one object
  • a side dot on each object's icon: left blue, right red, middle yellow — where it stands in the scene
  • namespaces drawn faint before the name
  • paste names: copy a column of names, Ctrl+V in the list — one per row, previewed first
  • row buttons: type a name, the other side's name for this one, select it and everything under it, copy, into the field
  • keys: ↑ ↓ pick (selects and frames), F2 / Enter type a name, space ticks, ← → fold
• Rename — checks as a strip over the list, colored by what they do, with counts: same names, bad names, skin joints (select the mesh), other side, the convention; make unique, name related, fix by the convention; locked / lock / unlock; quick sets.

Improved

• Rename is much more compact:
  • the quick buttons are four groups (case, take a part off, clean, sides & shapes): a click repeats the one used last, the corner opens the rest; all quick icons redrawn so they read at a glance
  • recipes and favorite words moved into menus (a bookmark beside Rename, a star beside the suffix)
  • Words, Find & Replace and the settings (sides, suffixes by kind, convention) are buttons in the window's header; what the tool says shows in the header too
  • an empty list shrinks to a line with the names used last; search opens in the list's head (Ctrl+F); the list folds
  • the window fits its height to what it shows (until you drag its height yourself; the settings menu brings it back)

Fixed

• Windows' own title of the hub and its dialogs was "pythonw".
• Maya version tiles shifted for a moment when a launch started.

v0.3.0 — Batch and Rename

New

• Batch (hub) — Maya scenes rendered one after another without opening Maya. Drop scenes in; each is read and checked first (renderer, lights, camera, missing caches and textures), then rendered with Arnold (with or without a Maya window) or the viewport renderer, frame by frame, and turned into a video. Progress and time left, a test frame, Maya's log per job, Maya Gate environments, render layers, PNG / JPG / EXR, a search folder for missing files, low priority and free cores, drag order, a notice when the queue is done.
• Rename (inside Maya 2025+, MSL menu) — quick naming of objects with every change shown as before → after first, one undo step per action:
  • a name template with tokens: {#} numbers, {A} letters, {side} lf / rt / mid from where the object stands, {type} a suffix from its kind, {name}, {parent}, {root}; numbering by selection, name, position or chains (fingers: finger_A_01…03, finger_B_01…, with end on the last)
  • quick buttons with icons: case, snake / camel, take off prefix / suffix / numbers / letters, out of a namespace, fix bad names, clean what an import leaves (pasted__, arm_jnt1), L↔R mirror, name shapes after their transforms
  • prefix / suffix, side and kind buttons, find & replace (every occurrence, regex, in the selection / hierarchy / scene)
  • a library of words with categories, favorites and completion in every field; recipes — a way of naming saved under a name
  • the list: Maya's type icons, Selected / Hierarchy, filter by kind, search, pick rows (click / Shift / Ctrl — only they are renamed), ticks to leave rows out, locks, drag rows to set the order of numbers, a click selects and frames the object, what changes in a name highlighted
  • checks and clean-up: same names → Make unique, bad names, a naming convention with marks in the list and Fix, Name related (shading group, material, skin, blendShape, constraints named after their object), lock / unlock nodes, skin joints, the other side, quick sets
  • a small field at the mouse pointer for a rename without the window (hotkey MSLRenameQuick); hotkeys MSLRename, MSLRenameRepeat