Conversions & Drag Conversion

▶Video tutorial — coming soon

Every row in OSA is the same object, but not every row is allowed to do the same things — because Harmony's own model has shapes it does not have. This page is about those limits, how the Inspector shows them, and how you get out of one.

The Inspector changes shape

Select a frame, an art layer or a subart layer and most of the Inspector disappears:

Section	Drawing container	Frame	Art layer / Subart	Frames folder	Template
Item Properties	✅	✅	✅	name locked	name locked
Content Nodes	✅ full	✅ artwork fields only	✅ artwork fields only	❌	❌
Hierarchy Nodes	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Effects Nodes	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌

Nothing is greyed out and left there to tease you — it is hidden, because it is not a setting this row will ever have.

Why: a frame is an exposed cel inside an element. There is no peg on a cel, no composite on a cel, no glow on a cel. The peg belongs to the drawing node above the frame; that is the row where those blocks live and the row where you set them.

The same holds one level further down: an art layer is a layer inside the drawing, and a subart layer is one image in that layer's stack. Neither is a node in the Node View, so neither has node properties.

Hidden, not disabled

A disabled control says "you could have this, just not now". These sections are hidden because the answer is "never, on this kind of row" — and OSA's rule is that a greyed control without a reason is a bug, so it does not grey what it cannot explain.

What each kind can hold

The parenting rules are enforced on every drop, and the refusal always names itself:

Child	Allowed parent	Refusal you'll see
Frame	the Frames folder	Frames must be in a Frames Folder
Frame in a Frame	—	BLOCKER: Frame inside Frame (Must be ArtLayer)
Frames folder	a drawing container	Frames Folder must be a child of a Drawing Container
Art layer	a frame	Art Layers must be children of a Frame
Subart layer	an art layer or another subart	Sub-ArtLayers must be children of an ArtLayer
Drawing container	anywhere except inside a frame, art layer or Frames folder	Drawings cannot be inside Frames/Content nodes
Peg / Group / Composite / Backdrop	anywhere except inside content nodes	… cannot be inside content nodes
Template (.tpl)	anywhere except frames and art layers	TPL Files cannot be inside Frames or Art Layers

Freeing a frame

A frame is a locked-down row: no peg, no effects, and its children can only be art layers. When you need it to be more than that, turn it back into a drawing.

Untick Frame in the Inspector. What happens:

1. The frame numbers are remembered (Start, End, the number) so ticking Frame again restores them exactly.
2. The row becomes a drawing container — Hierarchy Nodes and Effects Nodes reappear.
3. A Frames folder is created inside it.
4. Any art layers or subart layers it had are moved into that Frames folder.

That last step is the interesting one, and it is the answer to "how do I turn artwork into a frame?":

Converting a frame into a drawing frees its artwork to become frames.

The art layers that were locked inside the frame are now sitting in a Frames folder, which is exactly where frames live. From there, each one can become a frame in its own right.

Tick Frame again and the reverse happens: the Frames folder is removed, its children move back up, and the remembered numbers come back.

Art layer → frame, and the promotion that follows

Untick Target Layer on an art layer and it converts into a frame:

1. The art-layer type is cleared.
2. The row takes the next available frame number — no collision with existing exposures.
3. Its subart layers are promoted to art layers, inheriting the type the parent had.

That third step is the part worth memorising. A subart layer is "one image in an art layer's stack" — the moment its parent stops being an art layer, that description is meaningless. So the children become art layers themselves, and keep the type their parent was carrying, recursively all the way down.

The reverse of the whole thing: drop a frame onto another frame or onto an art layer with Drag Conversion on, and it becomes an art layer again — restoring the type it had before, or LA if it never had one.

The type is stashed, not lost

When a conversion drops an art-layer type, OSA keeps it. Convert back and the original layer returns instead of everything collapsing to Line Art.

Drag Conversion

The Drag Conversion checkbox in the Browser's Settings section decides what a drop means. It is off by default.

• Off — Strict Mode

  ---

  An invalid drop is refused, and the message names the checkbox that would allow it:

  Strict Mode: Cannot nest Frames. Enable 'Allow Drag Conversion'.

  Your tree only ever contains shapes you asked for.

• On — Conversion

  ---

  The dropped row becomes what the target requires, and OSA says what it did:

  Converted ArtLayer to Frame

  Fast, and the fastest way to restructure a tree that arrived wrong.

What converts into what

Drag	Onto	With Drag Conversion on
Art layer / subart	a Frames folder or a drawing container	becomes a frame, gets the next free number, and its subart layers are promoted to art layers
Frame	another frame or an art layer	becomes an art layer, restoring its stashed type (or LA)

What is refused either way

Two drops are invalid no matter how the checkbox is set, because there is no sensible thing they could convert into:

• a frame into a subart layer,
• an art layer into a subart layer.

Choosing a mode

Use Strict when	Use Conversion when
You are placing artwork and want mistakes refused	You are restructuring a tree that came in wrong
The tree's shape is already right	You want a drop to mean "become this"
You are working fast in a deep tree	You are reorganising art layers between frames

Both are safe with respect to your artwork: nothing is discarded because the hierarchy changed. What changes is whether an unusual drop is a refusal or a conversion.

See Concepts for which rows hold artwork, and Split & Merge for the verbs that restructure without dragging.