Idea: Flowchart event view.

Hi people! Just got the idea! Haven't thought it through so much so i just want to hear what you think about it. Wouldn't it be nice with a way to view and edit the events like a flowchart? I guess subevents can look a bit like that, but it's not really the same thing. Does some programs use that already? Would it work?

Lots of programs go for a sort of 2D flowchart view. I never liked it. Moving things around in 2D takes up way too much screen real estate. Lots of other programs do it that way as well (e.g. Unity's new PlayMaker thing, and Scratch and its derivatives like Google Android App Maker and Stencyl), so I don't think Construct has anything to gain by doing that.

Lots of programs go for a sort of 2D flowchart view. I never liked it. Moving things around in 2D takes up way too much screen real estate. Lots of other programs do it that way as well (e.g. Unity's new PlayMaker thing, and Scratch and its derivatives like Google Android App Maker and Stencyl), so I don't think Construct has anything to gain by doing that.

I agree with this, I guess for some users it'd be nice as a side feature. But if I had to use flow charts to design my game, I'd get really annoyed with the extra delay and clutter they have.

Yeah i much prefer Construct system. More flexible than that only raw code

yeah, blender Game engine use a flowchat system and... i really HATE it ... it take too much space for nothing and take 10 time longer to make something simple in construct

i wish blender was more like construct.

I guess you haven't really used a flowchart system before, Attan...

One word?

Spaghetti.

[quote:1xsuwkvo]One word?

Spaghetti.

Not sure about what kind of flowchart you are talking about, but I use VVVV sometimes and found it quite easy to use, despite the (very) steep learning curve from my programming-impaired point of view ^^

<img src="http://image.just-download.com/data_images/2011/01/05/1294236405-vvvv1.png">

I have no idea how this could be implemented to Construct, though.

Haha, ok, i just hadn't seen it before. I wasn't thinking the whole event system though. More like you right-klick and select "insert flowchart" and there you can put a small piece of events together in that way. I just thought for some people things are easier to figure out if you work in a visual way. Both beginners, and pros working on something really tricky.

But if you've tried it and you say it sucks, then I'll just trust your judgment.

These flowchart systems work quite well for graphics setups like 3d shaders etc but for game development not so much and click programming/event sheets are probably the best method i have seen other than coding.

I could imagine making something complex then forgetting what something was doing later. You would also have to search around a lot to find certain events if you wanted to edit.

With the current event system though that is not a problem so i would agree with Ashley as i think a flowchart system would make things more complicated than they need to be. Making a new events system would just slow down development also and i think there is a lot better things time could be spent on now with C2.

the kismet scripting system from unreal 3 uses a flow chart as well.

aside from the aforementioned problems. construct gives you control over the order of condition evaluation. in order to do this in a flow chart, the flow would have to converge on the next nonsub event each time, which would make for about the most unreadable thing in the universe, unless you just put them all in a straight line with indented branches, which would end up looking like the current event sheet with little lines everywhere

Yeah. While flowcharts are good for smaller things (and excellent for algorithms), they're hopelessly impractical for actual larger-scale programming, not to mention somewhat limited by the amount of input/output thingies.

Ok, I'm convinced, no flowcharts. Too bad the don't work that well, they look so pretty!

An app for doing flowcharts on game design wouldn't be a bad idea.

Things like npc switching, conversations, etc aren't always easy to conceptualize.

Something that gives a dev a graphical representation might help a lot.

Back in the day when I was using Flash and programming in AS3 I ran across a really nifty "automated" flowcharting tool, UML4AS, which at the time was in Beta and was free which is not the case now.