Small nifty things..

Hi! I've been keeping my eyes open in 0.x for small stuff that i think should be improved. Not full-fledged features, just smaller practical things that would make C2 a bit nicer and more effective to use. Feel free to add to the list (just keep it to smaller things to stick to the topic), I probably will add more things myself.

Comments should always be attached to an event, condition, or action. It's a pain to comment code, and then when you've worked with it a bit more the comments are all over the place and you have to redo it. Maybe attaching them to a specific action or condition is too much, but they should at least be able to stick to a specific event.

At private variables, the text "a private variable" is a perfect place to put a description of your choice on what the variable does. See no reason why this wouldn't be a good thing, i often use pv's for settings on a specific object where a description on exactly how it works would be really helpful, especially in collaborations.

System: Create, should have options for size and angle. Almost every system:create event is followed by another event setting the size and angle.

From what I heard the menus system is half done and Id like to see it finished.It would help me a lot.

Another thing i want to see is the ability to group several layouts in a folder simply for better organisation and cleaner look when you have many levels and layouts.

It's good to think of the small things! I'm always interested in little changes and tweaks, because often it's the little things that people like about software.

Comments should always be attached to an event, condition, or action.

This is an interesting idea - but it seems it might prevent stacking two comments on top of each other. Is that an acceptable side effect?

[quote:37i0uljt]At private variables, the text "a private variable" is a perfect place to put a description of your choice on what the variable does.

Where do you mean?

I like the idea of adding comments to instance variables, to help organise and describe them. I might try and put this in a future build.

[quote:37i0uljt]System: Create, should have options for size and angle.

I don't actually think this is such a good idea, because not all objects have a size and an angle, and it's confusing to display options that have no effect. IMO I don't think it's such a bother to just follow with two actions. Also, the Sprite 'spawn' action takes care of angle for you.

From what I heard the menus system is half done and Id like to see it finished

If I understand you correctly, you mean the application menus in 0.x? I can't see how that's applicable to the HTML5 runtime in C2.

the ability to group several layouts in a folder simply for better organisation

You can, since the very first C2 public preview! Have you tried it?

What if comments could be moved about and placed either as an event, condition or action?

What if comments could be moved about and placed either as an event, condition or action?

Yes, do it, do it now.

Arima, your genius is showing !

[quote:25pajynw]This is an interesting idea - but it seems it might prevent stacking two comments on top of each other. Is that an acceptable side effect?

I'm not sure what you mean with stacking on top of each other.. do you mean that you can just have one comment per event? I would still think it's worth it, but you could leave the regular comments available for those who disagree.

[quote:25pajynw]Where do you mean?

I mean this part here:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/930918/variable%20text.jpg">

Would be nice to add a short description instead.

You're right about the size/angle thing. Didn't think about that.

Another one. I don't know when you're going to implement a debugger, but in 0.x, it was sometimes a pain to search for the value you're after in the debugger. So suggestion is that with every value in the editor you should be able to right klick and pick "add to debugger watchlist".

Settings where you can change default values for some stuff would be nice. For example default width of created sprites. I usually make my sprites 32x32, so i always have to resize them and move the hotspot.

What about being able to quickly change the object the event is for?

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1024727/c2event.PNG">

Like you click on the left side of the event, where it says "sprite2", then a new dialog comes up so you can replate it with "sprite4". Instead of having to go back?

Yeah, you can do that in some places in 0.x, but not everywhere.

If you create a sprite in 0.x, but then change your mind when you're in the picture editor there's no way to cancel it. If you close the editor without drawing anything a blank sprite is created.

Of course you should be able to create a blank sprite as well, but when closing the picture editor with no pixels drawn you should get a warning and an alternative to delete the sprite.

Would be nice to be able to use CTRL+C and CTRL+V on the animation tab. Also I think it would be better if the "add frame" didn't also opened the image editor so I can easily create many new frames in a row, and edit them later, or at least, open it on the newly created frame (instead of always showing the first frame)