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Installation

Requirements

  • Toon Boom Harmony 21 Premium or later (tested on 21, 22, 24, 25).
  • Harmony Premium — Essentials and Advanced do not support Python scripting.
  • Python 3.9 installed on the operating system (Harmony launches user scripts through it — the same requirement as every other Octo Tools product). If ORC already runs on your machine, you're set.

Python setup

Harmony embeds its own Qt/PySide runtime but launches user scripts via a separate Python 3.9 interpreter on the system PATH.

Python version is strict

Harmony only loads Python 3.9. Versions 3.10, 3.11, 3.12 and newer are silently ignored. If you have several Python versions installed, keep only 3.9 on PATH to be safe.

  1. Download Python 3.9.13 (64-bit) from python.org.
  2. Run the installer with "Add Python 3.9 to PATH" enabled.

  3. Verify in PowerShell:

    python --version

    Expected: Python 3.9.13

  1. Download Python 3.9.13 from python.org.
  2. Run the installer.

  3. Verify in Terminal:

    python3 --version

The Octo Tools Installer

There is one installer for the whole Octo Tools suite. You download it once, tick the products you bought — here, Octo Skip Nodes — tick the applications to deploy into, and press Install.

Platform What you run
Windows Octo-Tools-Installer.exe
macOS Install Octo Tools.command

macOS ships as a script, not a signed app

Install Octo Tools.command is a plain shell script that runs the same Python code as the Windows build — there is no .app, no code signing and no notarization. Double-click it to run. If macOS refuses, make it executable once:

chmod +x "Install Octo Tools.command"

The window has three parts:

  1. Detected hosts — the Harmony, Blender and Maya install paths found on this machine. Octo Skip Nodes is Harmony-only, so only its Harmony checkbox is available.
  2. Products — one row per product, one checkbox per application. Nothing is ticked by default; tick Octo Skip Nodes under Harmony.
  3. Licence key (optional) — one field per product row. You can leave it empty and activate later inside the app.

Each ticked target is deployed to its native location, and the installer records exactly what it wrote in an uninstall manifest.

Licences are per product

Activating Octo Skip Nodes covers every DCC that product supports on that machine. The other Octo Tools products have their own licences and their own keys — one key never unlocks the suite.

Administrator is required for Octo Skip Nodes

Close Toon Boom Harmony first, then run the installer elevated — on Windows, right-click it and choose Run as administrator; on macOS the installer asks whether to include Octo Skip Nodes and uses sudo if you say yes.

Octo Skip Nodes is the only product in the suite that needs elevation: it registers its keyboard shortcuts in the Harmony install's resources/shortcuts.xml (under Program Files, or inside the .app bundle on macOS), and writes a .octobak backup beside the original before touching it.

If you refuse elevation, nothing breaks silently

The Octo Skip Nodes scripts still install and the tool still runs from the Script Editor — only the keyboard shortcuts are missing, and the installer says so explicitly. Re-run it elevated whenever you want the shortcuts. Re-run it after a Harmony update or reinstall too — the install's shortcut file gets reset.

What the installer does for Octo Skip Nodes

  1. Copies the tool into Harmony's scripts folder — the octoSkipNodes/ bundle (the Python package) plus the OctoSkipNodes.js gate loose in the scripts root (a tiny launcher; all the logic is Python).
  2. Registers the keyboard shortcuts in the install's resources/shortcuts.xml (in the General category, so they work in the Camera, Timeline, and Node views) and frees the native B / Shift+B (Select Parent / Child Skipping Effects). A .octobak backup is written first.

Uninstalling

Tick the Octo Skip Nodes row and press Uninstall. Removal is per product and precise: the installer removes only the paths it recorded for Octo Skip Nodes — including restoring shortcuts.xml from its .octobak — so the other Octo tools on the machine are untouched.

What lands where

Target Shape Location
Harmony scripts OctoSkipNodes.js loose in the scripts root, plus the octoSkipNodes/ bundle beside it Windows %APPDATA%\Toon Boom Animation\<product>\<version>-scripts\ · macOS ~/Library/Preferences/Toon Boom Animation/<product>/<version>-scripts/
Harmony install four entries added to resources/shortcuts.xml, with a .octobak backup Windows C:\Program Files (x86)\Toon Boom Animation\Toon Boom Harmony <version>\resources\ · macOS inside /Applications/Toon Boom Harmony <version>/

Harmony only registers scripts found in the scripts root

OctoSkipNodes.js must sit loose in <version>-scripts/, never inside a subfolder, and the Python package must be in a folder named exactly octoSkipNodes — that is the name the .js resolves.

Manual install

On a locked-down machine where you can't run an installer, deploy by hand — the layout above is the whole contract. With Harmony closed:

  1. Copy OctoSkipNodes.js into <version>-scripts/ and the Python package into <version>-scripts/octoSkipNodes/.
  2. Start Harmony and run OctoSkipNodes.js from the Script Editor — the tool works from there with no shortcuts registered.
  3. Optionally bind the four actions yourself in Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts → General.

Default shortcuts

Key Action
B Skip up (to parent)
Shift+B Skip down (to child)
Ctrl+Alt+B Jump up to the next + node
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B Jump down to the previous + node

Change them anytime in Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts → General — look for Octo Skip Up / Down and Octo Jump Up / Down.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Fix
Shortcuts stopped working after a Harmony update Re-run the installer as administrator (the install's shortcut file was reset).
Installer says "Python not found" Install Python 3.9 (see above) and run it again.
Toolbar buttons work but B / Shift+B do nothing The installer wasn't run as administrator, or Harmony was open during install. Close Harmony and run it again as admin.
You want the old native B behavior back Uninstall Octo Skip Nodes from the installer, or restore resources/shortcuts.xml from the .octobak backup the installer made.