Families need unique icons

Hey everyone,

Given that construct 2 boasts itself as being a non programing game maker with an easy to use visual interface, I figured it is missing a feature. Family groups should be able to have an icon applied to the group for use in construct. If you build a game larger than asteroids, families become super important. Needless to say most of the events in the project end up working with families rather than specific objects.

When every object you work with has the same icon and a necessary descriptive long name, the advantages of a visual editor disappear. Worse yet, it becomes harder to read than lines of code as long names are often cut short due to lack of screen space.

see below example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jtnzdyah6rwp5de/Capture.PNG?dl=0

Most events are absolutely unclear what object they are referring to without investigating closely.

I want to be able to load a sprite so that every family has a unique look - this wouldn't effect game size and everything needed to do this exists I think. Any chance of this happening Ashley ?

* EDIT * - Also, you can't make subfolders for families and group by folder as you can objects. With 20 families, this is annoying. With 100, it is a real work flow killer.

Add it to the list of nice-to-haves I guess For me this would be pretty low priority but YMMV. I think you would still need a 'standardised' way to visually differentiate between normal objects and families.

Edit: would be good if we could have 'editor' add-ons. Is this possible? I can think of a few I would create straight away!

Plus one.

Might be nice if you could do that with folders as well, but to be honest I kind of wish the "Objects With Expressions" window didn't even use folders, as its easier to find the iconised objects rather than sorting through folders.

Like codah said, I think I would start forgetting which icons were families and which were just other objects. For me at least, I think that would just make it more confusing..

I believe this was already asked a long time ago and it's already on todo list.

newt same here, no folders and a bit clearer maybe? not sure if thats a correct word for that... but it gets messy and hard to read very fast

[attachment=0:2p5jxe4j][/attachment:2p5jxe4j]

Like codah said, I think I would start forgetting which icons were families and which were just other objects. For me at least, I think that would just make it more confusing..

I guess just tacking on that little '4 red squares' sub-icon to your chosen image would do it.

TBH I probably wouldn't bother with creating special icons, but how about if the editor used the first object listed in the Family as the family icon itself (with C2 overlaying some standard graphic on top)?

codah - Thats a good way I think. I figured (as an artist) you would use whatever image you wanted to represent the family and so why would you get confused - Especially if you follow good naming conventions (i.e family name is plural or generalistic in scope "CharacterColiders", "Enemies", ect and specific objects are "MarioCollider", and "enemyGoomba" - if that makes sense.

I am an artist and a programer. For me that I means I like things to be crisply organized but in a very visual way or nodal way. I stick to self imposed rules and guidelines for how I organize my work so there is very little chance of confusing myself if I have power over that organizational workflow. Other people would be lost for sure (I think alphabetizing is stupid for example), but allowing users to create the look that makes sense to them... well, that makes sense to me.

I never cared about this though until I started a really big project... That is when all the little things can become big things - little problem to big problem

codah - Thats a good way I think. I figured (as an artist) you would use whatever image you wanted to represent the family and so why would you get confused - Especially if you follow good naming conventions (i.e family name is plural or generalistic in scope "CharacterColiders", "Enemies", ect and specific objects are "MarioCollider", and "enemyGoomba" - if that makes sense.

I am an artist and a programer. For me that I means I like things to be crisply organized but in a very visual way or nodal way. I stick to self imposed rules and guidelines for how I organize my work so there is very little chance of confusing myself if I have power over that organizational workflow. Other people would be lost for sure (I think alphabetizing is stupid for example), but allowing users to create the look that makes sense to them... well, that makes sense to me.

I never cared about this though until I started a really big project... That is when all the little things can become big things - little problem to big problem

I understand everyone's needs are different I also have conventions and systems. Consistency is everything IMO. I've started naming my families with 'fam' prefix, for instance (camel case, e.g. famWhatever). Also the visuals are not so important to me coming from a traditional programming background.