Toon Boom
Harmony 17 Essentials
Preferences Guide

TOON BOOM ANIMATION INC.

+1 514 278 8666

4200 Saint-Laurent, Suite 1020
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H2W 2R2

contact@toonboom.com
toonboom.com

Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

Legal Notices
Toon Boom Animation Inc.
4200 Saint-Laurent, Suite 1020
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H2W 2R2
Tel: +1 514 278 8666
Fax: +1 514 278 2666
toonboom.com

Disclaimer
The content of this document is the property of Toon Boom Animation Inc. and is copyrighted. Any
reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.
The content of this document is covered by a specific limited warranty and exclusions and limit of liability under

the applicable License Agreement as supplemented by the special terms and conditions for Adobe®Flash ® File
Format (SWF). For details, refer to the License Agreement and to those special terms and conditions.

Trademarks
Toon Boom® is a registered trademark. Harmony™ and the Toon Boom logo are trademarks of Toon Boom
Animation Inc. All other trademarks of the property of their respective owners.

Publication Date
10-27-2020
Copyright © 2020 Toon Boom Animation Inc., a Corus Entertainment Inc. company. All rights reserved.

1

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Table of Contents

2

About Harmony Preferences

4

Accessing the Preferences Dialog

6

Switching Between Preference Sets

8

Exporting Preferences

10

Importing Preferences

12

Resetting Preferences

14

Preferences File Location

16

Preferences Dialog Reference

18

General Preferences

19

Camera Preferences

24

Exposure Sheet Preferences

25

Drawing Preferences

26

OpenGL Preferences

28

Advanced Preferences30

2Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

3

About Harmony Preferences

About Harmony Preferences
The Preferences dialog box allows you to adjust preferences to suit your workflow and your production's needs.

4Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

5

Accessing the Preferences Dialog

Accessing the Preferences Dialog
You can access the Preferences dialog from the Edit menu on Windows, or from the Harmony Essentials menu
on macOS.

How to open the Preferences dialog box
1. Do one of the following:llWindows:l

In the top menu, select Edit > Preferences.

l

Press Ctrl + U.

macOS:l

In the top menu, select Harmony Essentials > Preferences.

l

Press ⌘ + U.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

7

Switching Between Preference Sets

Switching Between Preference Sets
Harmony comes preloaded with five different preference presets (referred to as preference sets), each tailored
for a different kind of task. By default, the Basic preference set is used. You can choose which preference set touse in Preferences dialog.
A large part of the default settings in the different preference sets are the same. The following table describes
which option is different depending in each preference set, and how:
Preference Set
Tab /Location

Preference

GeneralPencil Tool
Properties

Basic

Compositing

CutoutAnimation

Paperless
Animation

Rigging

Focus on
Mouse Enter

Off

On

On

On

On

Default
Separate
Position for
Pegs

Off

Off

On

Off

On

Stop-Motion
Keyframes

Off

Off

On

Off

On

Auto Close
Gap

On

On

On

On

Off

NOTES
l

When you customize a preference manually, it is not saved to the current preference set. It issaved as an override for all preference sets.

l

Switching between preference sets only affects preferences that you have not manuallycustomized yourself. This means, for example, that if you manually enable the Focus on MouseEnter preference, this preference will no longer be affected when you switch to a different
preference set.

l

To make all your preferences affected by the preference set you select again, you must reset
your preferences—see Resetting Preferences on page 14.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

How to switch between preference presets
1. Do one of the following to open the Preferences dialog:llWindows:l

In the top menu, select Edit > Preferences.

l

Press Ctrl + U.

macOS:l

In the top menu, select Harmony Essentials > Preferences.

l

Press ⌘ + U.

2. In the top-left corner of the Preferences dialog, open the Preference Set drop-down and select thepreset you want to use.

Preferences will be updated according to the table above, except for those that you manually set.
3. Click on OK.

9Exporting Preferences

Exporting Preferences
You can export your current preferences to an XML file. You can reimport this file later to restore yourpreferences, or share it with project collaborators so that you all use the same preferences.
NOTE
When you export your preferences, only the preferences for the currently selected preference set
are exported.

How to export your preferences configuration
1. Do one of the following to open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog:llWindows:l

In the top menu, select Edit > Preferences.

l

Press Ctrl + U.

macOS:l

In the top menu, select Harmony Essentials > Preferences.

l

Press ⌘ + U.

2. Near the top of the dialog, right of the Preference Set: drop-down, click on the Save... button.
A save dialog appears.
3. Browse to the location where you want to save your preference file.
4. Type in the desired name for your preference file.
5. Click on Save.
Your current preference settings have been exported as an XML file, in the selected location withthe file name you gave it.

10Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

11

Importing Preferences

Importing Preferences
You can import a preference file exported from Harmony.
NOTESl

To export preferences into a file, see Exporting Preferences on page 10.

l

When you import a preference file, it will override all your preferences for the currently selected
preference set.

How to import a keyboard shortcut configuration file
1. Do one of the following to open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog:llWindows:l

In the top menu, select Edit > Preferences.

l

Press Ctrl + U.

macOS:l

In the top menu, select Harmony Essentials > Preferences.

l

Press ⌘ + U.

2. At the right of the Preference Set: drop-down, click on the Load... button.
An open dialog appears.
3. Browse to the directory where your preference file is located.
4. Select the preference file you want to import.
5. Click on Open.
The settings in the selected preference file are loaded into the Preferences dialog, overwriting yourcurrent preferences.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

13

Resetting Preferences

Resetting Preferences
You can reset the preferences in Harmony to their default settings.
IMPORTANTThis will permanently undo all the changes you made to your Harmony preferences.

How to reset your keyboard shortcuts configuration
1. Do one of the following to open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog:lWindows: In the top menu, select Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.

lmacOS: In the top menu, select Harmony Essentials > Keyboard Shortcuts.

2. In the bottom-left corner of the Preferences dialog, click on Restore All Defaults.
A confirmation prompt appears.
3. If you are sure you want to restore the default preferences for Harmony, click on Yes.
All the preferences in the Preferences dialog are now set to their default setting.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

15

Preferences File Location

Preferences File Location
T-HFND-002-002
After the first time you have launched Harmony, your preferences, along with numerous other options andswitches in the user interface, are stored in a hidden directory on your computer.
Depending on your operating system, you can find your preference files in the following location:lWindows: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Toon Boom Animation\Toon Boom Harmony
Essentials\full-1700-pref
NOTE
On Windows, the AppData folder is hidden. To display it in Explorer, in the top menu, open
the View pane and check the Hidden Items checkbox.

lmacOS: /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Toon Boom Animation/Toon Boom Harmony
Essentials/full-1700-pref
NOTE
On macOS, the Library folder is hidden. To display it in Finder, hold down the Alt key.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

17

Preferences Dialog Reference

Preferences Dialog Reference
The following section contains a an article for each tab in the Preferences dialog. Each article contains a list of
all the preferences in its tab, as well as a description of the preference. Refer to this section if you want to know
more about what a specific preference does or if you want to get familiarized with all of the preferences in
Harmony.
General Preferences

19

Camera Preferences

24

Exposure Sheet Preferences

25

Drawing Preferences

26

OpenGL Preferences

28

Advanced Preferences

30

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

General Preferences

To customize your interface, you will use some of the preferences located in the General tab as well as the
Camera tab.
Parameter

Description
In Harmony Server, you can decide which kinds of assets are saved when
you use the Save command. This can be useful if you need specific users to
only be able to make changes to certain aspects of the scene they're
working on, or if you want to prevent yourself from accidentally making
undesired changes to important assets. Unchecking any of the following
options will prevent you from saving their corresponding type of assets:
l

Save
l

l

l

Save Scene: Save changes to the list of layers, elements, animation,
timing, layout, effects, scene properties, etc.
Save Palette Lists: Save changes to the list of palettes associated tothe scene or to individual elements.
Save Palettes: Save changes to the colours and textures contained inpalettes.
Save Drawings: Save changes to existing drawings as well as newly
created drawings.

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Preferences Dialog Reference

TIP
If you want to save changes made to a type of asset that for whichsaving was disabled, you can do so by selecting File > Advanced

Save from the top menu. In the Advanced Save dialog, assets forwhich saving is disabled will be unchecked, so you must manuallycheck the assets you want to save.

IMPORTANT
When you close a scene, Harmony will not ask for confirmation todiscard changes made to assets for which saving is disabled.

Auto-Save:lllInterval (minutes): This is the frequency at which the auto-savetakes place.
Inactivity Interval (seconds): When Auto-save is about to take place,it verifies if you are drawing or doing anything in the application. If
so, Auto-save waits this number of seconds before attempting
another save.
Ask Before Saving: Before performing an auto-save, the system willprompt you with a message to confirm if you want to save or not.
You can choose to turn off this option.

lEnabled: This enables the Auto-save feature. If you do not want thesystem to automatically save your work, deselect this option. The
auto-save is off by default.

Automatically Save Workspace: Changes to your workspace, such as how
views and toolbars are laid out, are automatically saved, making sure yourworkspace remains the same after you close and re-launch Harmony or if
you switch between different workspaces. If this option is disabled, youmust manually save changes to your workspace by selecting Windows >Workspace > Save Workspace from the top menu.

Options

Support Gestures: Enables manipulating views such as the Camera andDrawing views using the following gestures:l

To pan the view, drag your two fingers in any direction, keeping
both fingers at the same distance from each other.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guidel

To zoom in, drag your two fingers away from each other.

l

To zoom out, drag your two fingers closer to each other.

l

To rotate, drag your two fingers in a curve so that they revolve in thesame direction.

21

Preferences Dialog Reference

Invert Scroll Direction: When panning a view by dragging it with yourfingers in one direction, this makes the view pan in the opposite direction.
Touch Sensitivity: Control touch sensitivity. On macOS, higher numbers
give a slower response to pans. On Windows, higher numbers favour
scale/rotates over pans.
Auto Render: Controls whether the Camera view's Auto Render option isenabled or disabled when launching Harmony. When Auto Render isdisabled, if any change is made to the scene while the Camera view is in
Render Preview mode, it will switch to OpenGL Preview mode. Whenenabled, it will merely refresh the render preview.
Focus on Mouse Enter: In Harmony, some keyboard shortcuts, menus or
toolbar buttons are intended for specific views in your workspace. To use
keyboard shortcuts or other functionalities on a specific view, this viewmust be focused on. For example, the Centre on Selection shortcut will findthe selected element in the Timeline or Camera view, depending on which
one is focused on. Harmony draws a red rectangle around the currently
focused on view.
By default, to set the focus on a view, you must click on its tab or on
anything inside the view itself. The Focus on Mouse Enter preference will
make Harmony automatically focus on the view the mouse cursor is over,making it switch the focus on a view and use keyboard shortcuts on it.

22Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

NOTE
Some items in the top menu also have functionalities that are
specific to the focused on view, but moving the mouse cursor to the
top menu might leave the wrong view focused on. To circumvent
this problem, it might be necessary to become familiar withkeyboard shortcuts, contextual (right-click) menus and the view
menus available via the menu

button at the top-left corner ofsome views.

Use Dark StyleSheet (Requires Relaunch): Application loads a dark skin for
the User Interface.
Language (Requires Relaunch): The language in which to display the userinterface.
Language

By default, this is set to Autodetect, which means that Harmony will launchin the language of your operating system, if it is one of the supported
languages, and will otherwise launch in English.
Stop-Motion Keyframes: New keyframes are created as stop-motion
keyframes.

Settings

Default Separate Position for Pegs: New pegs are created with separate
position functions.
Default Separate Scale for Pegs: New pegs are created with separate scale
functions.

Timeline

Add Keyframe at Beginning and End: Add keyframes at beginning and end:
Select this option to copy and paste a set of frames that includes aninterpolated sequence between two keyframes, but only extracts a partial
section. Under normal circumstances, cutting and pasting a function
without either the start or end keyframe would render the function null. This
option caps the partial function with a new keyframe when you perform thepaste.
Extend Exposure of Previous Drawing: When drawing on a blank frame, a
new drawing is created and the timing is extended from the previous
exposed drawing.

23

Preferences Dialog Reference

Camera Preferences

Parameter

Description

Settings

Set Keyframe At Frame One With First Application of the Transform Tool: When
this option is selected, wherever you set a keyframe on a layer, a keyframe isadded on your frame 1. If this options is deselected, a keyframe is only added tothe current frame. If later on, you add a keyframe on your frame 1, it may modify
the first keyframe you added.
Small Bitmap Resolution: The size, in pixels, of the smaller bitmap version of yourimage. When you import a bitmap image into a scene, a smaller version of it iscreated in order to accelerate the compositing and playback processes.
Show Control Points On Selected Layers: By default, when you select an elementwith the Transform tool, the motion path related to the object is displayed.

Control Points

Control Point Tension: The default Tension value for new keyframes and control
points.
Control Point Continuity: The default Continuity value for new keyframes andcontrol points.
Control Point Bias: The default Bias value for new keyframes and control points.

Colours

Background Colour: Lets you change the background colour.

24Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

Exposure Sheet Preferences

Parameter

Description
These preferences are used to display or hide certain layer types in the Xsheet
view.
Show Drawing Columns: Displays the Drawing layers in the Xsheet view.

Filtering

Show Sound Columns: Displays the Sound columns in the Xsheet view.
Show 3D Path Columns: Displays the 3D Path columns in the Xsheet view.
Show Function Columns: Displays the Function columns layers in the Xsheet
view.
Default Add Columns: The default position where the new column will be added.

Options

Default Column Width: The default width value for the new column being
created.
You can set the minimum and maximum zoom levels to view the Xsheet,depending on the number of columns and rows in the project. Once you set alevel, close and reopen the Xsheet so the new values take effect.
Minimum Zoom Level: Lets you set the lowest level of zoom. Choose a value
between 1 and 6.

Zoom Levels

Maximum Zoom Level: Lets you set the highest level of zoom. Choose a value
between 14 and 20.

NOTE
You can set a keyboard shortcut to view the entire Xsheet.

25Preferences Dialog Reference

Drawing Preferences

Parameter

Description
Onion Skin Render Style:•

Original Colours: Drawings displayed in the Onion Skin are renderedusing their real colours.

•

Coloured:Drawings displayed in the Onion Skin are displayed in solid red
if they are before the current frame, or in solid green if they are after thecurrent frame.

•
Light Table

Coloured Outlines: Drawings displayed in the Onion Skin are displayed in
red outlines if they are before the current frame and in green outlines ifthey are after the current frame.

Light Table: Enable Shade: When enabled, the drawings appearing on the Light
Table are displayed in washed out colours in the Drawing view. When this option
is disabled, the drawings appearing in the Light Table are displayed using normal
colours. This option is for the Drawing view only.
Light Table: Shade in Camera View: When enabled, the drawings appearing onother layers are displayed in washed-out colours in the Camera view. When thisoption is disabled, the drawings appearing on other layers are displayed using
normal colours. This option is for the Camera view only.
Grid On By Default: When opening the Drawing view, the grid displays
automatically.

Options

Brush Size Cursor: When this option is enabled, the brush tool displays thebrush size as a circle around the cursor.
Synchronize Eraser and Brush: When enabled, changing any of the Brush tool's
properties simultaneously changes the corresponding property for the Eraser tool
to the same setting, and vice versa. Likewise, selecting a preset for one tool will
apply this preset's properties for the other tool.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

Auto Gap Closing in Pixel Units: Disabling this option will cause your gap to bezoom dependent. Zoom dependent means that the more you zoom in, the smaller
the gap you can close with the Close Gap tools. By enabling this option, youchoose to make the gap display available in pixel units, which is not zoom
dependent.
Auto Gap Closing on Startup: The values for automatic gap closing while
painting drawings are: 0 = Disabled, 1=Small, 2=Medium, 3=Big.
Pencil Lines Opacity (%): Lets you set the default tranparency of your pencil lines.

Colours

Background Colour: Lets you change the background colour.
Grid Colour: Lets you change the colour of the grid.
Enable Paper Zoom: Enabling this option allows you to set the 100% Zoom level
onscreen, in order to physically match the measurements of your paper drawing.

Zoom

Number of Pixels per Inch: Enter the PPI for your monitor. To obtain the PPI of
your screen, divide the height or width of your monitor's resolution setting by thecorresponding physical height or width of your monitor screen (resolution height
divided by physical height, or resolution width divided by physical width) in
inches.
Quick Close Up Zoom Factor: Sets the zoom level for the Quick Close up Zoom
keyboard shortcut.
Maximum Zoom Factor: Sets the maximum zoom level for the paper zoom.

27

Preferences Dialog Reference

OpenGL Preferences

Parameter

Description
Conservative Texture Management: Turns on and off conservative memory
management for bitmap texture files. Performance will improve when this isenabled. If disabled, you will have a better on-screen rendering of bitmap files atthe expense of slower performance.
Smooth Textures: Smooths out the pixels of bitmap images when zooming in;this improves bitmap image quality.
Alternate Gradient and Cutter: This is an alternative way to disable write in the
OpenGL Backbuffer, required for some video cards (i.e. GeForce FX5200). Do notenable this option unless you are experiencing problems with gradients andcutters in OpenGL.

Settings

Support Triple Buffer: Enable this option for a better compatibility with Windows
Vista if your video card driver does not allow to disable the triple buffering option.
Not enabling this option may result in a dashing line when drawing a brushstroke.
Support Desktop Effects: Enable this option for better compatibility with
Windows 7, Windows Vista and Mac OS X desktop effects. This will prevent
graphic compositing problems from happening when the full-scene anti-aliasing
option is enabled.
Maximum Texture Size: The size that the bitmap file will be reduced to whenusing the Conservative Texture Management.
Texture Memory: The amount of temporary memory used to store bitmap texture
files.
Vector Drawing Maximum Texture Size: This is the size that the .tvg file will be
reduced to for better performance when in OpenGL render mode.

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Harmony 17 Essentials Preferences Guide

The following options allow you to configure the way drawings are previewed inHarmony.
Enable (Requires Relaunch) : By default, drawings displayed in Harmony, such as
in the Camera or Drawing view, have no antialiasing and display hard pixels at theedge of strokes and lines. If this preference is enabled, antialiasing will be done
through the graphic card to enhance the quality of drawings and make a preview
that resemble the final render more closely. This may impact application
performance negatively.
Number of samples: The amount of times the OpenGL preview is scaled up before
processing it for antialiasing. The higher this value is, the better the antialiasing
quality will be but the heavier it will be on the machine's resources.

Full Scene Antialiasing

NOTES
l

l

l

It may be necessary to restart the application to see the effects
after changing either of these settings.
These settings may be overriden by the 3D antialiasing settingsof the driver for your graphics card. If changing these settings
and restarting the application seems to have no effect, make sure
your graphics card supports antialiasing, that antialiasing isenabled and that it is configured to let applications control theirantialiasing.
These settings only affect the way drawings are previewed in
OpenGL. They have no effect on the final rendered image, or on
the way the image looks when setting the Camera view in
Render Preview mode.

29

Preferences Dialog Reference

Advanced Preferences

Parameter

Advanced Options

Description
Support CMYK in PDF/Illustrator Import: Lets you import .pdf and .ai files thatwere created or exported in CMYK mode. The colours of the resulting imported
image may still not look 100% faithful to its CMYK original due to the RGB
conversion. It is recommended that you convert these files to RGB images before
importing them into Toon Boom Harmony Essentials. Disabling this option willcause all the colours of the imported image to be displayed as red to indicate thatthe file was not converted to RBG before import.
PDF/Illustrator Import as Separate Layers: Imports the different groups/elementsof the .pdf or .ai file as separate layers. For Illustrator files, the import will use the
top level group as separate layer names. Deselect this option to import pdf or .ai
files as a single layer.

Tablet Support

Use Qt Wintab Tablet Support (Requires Relaunch): If you are using a tablet
other than Wacom, deselect this option (and relaunch) if you are having issues
with offset or pressure sensitivity.

UnicodeAllow Unicode Names: Lets you use up to 120 ASCII characters for names ofenvironments, jobs and scenes. This means you can use characters for languages,
such as Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, and others, characters for names inyour database setup.

30