Suggestion: Folders for variables

If anyone uses as many variables as I do, chances are they instantly know why I'm asking for this feature. Because the thing is, I use A LOT of variables, and it can be tedious to find the ones you want and to organize them as you keep adding more. I'm the type of guy who uses groups to organize events, and groups within groups to organize those, and occasionally -- gasp! -- even three layers deep. Groupception at its finest. <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> It would be amazing if you could essentially do the same thing for variables to help keep things tidy!

I just thought of it now, but the same solution for objects would also help immensely. I know for both variables and objects you can do the "start typing the name and it tries to find it for you" thing, but folders would still be infinitely more helpful in my opinion.

Not begging to see this anytime soon, so if you do want to add it, don't feel bad throwing it to the bottom of the to-do list. <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I second that, good idea

I just thought of it now, but the same solution for objects would also help immensely.

Can't already the objects be put into folder in the object bar ? Or are you meaning something else ?

The project bar allows you to folder organise objects, but currently some dialogs (like new condition/action) still display everything without any folder organisation. It's on our todo list to get folders to display there, but it's a low priority since it's still pretty easy to quickly find objects via the search box.

I'm not so sure about folder-organising variables - I don't see any obvious way to fit it in to the UI. Properties in the properties bar generally aren't drag-and-droppable like the project bar is, so the same method of right-click, making folders and dragging stuff in probably won't work in the properties bar. What would organising variables look like?

Sigh. I never knew about the object subfolders. Maybe the fact that they don't appear in dialogues threw me off, but either way I'm glad to see that's already partially there and the rest is slowly but surely in the works.

As for how variable folders would work... I cobbled together some mock-ups to show what I mean, since the following text description by itself is very much inadequate. <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

<img src="http://oi43.tinypic.com/2m63h9y.jpg" border="0" />

You can add folders using a new button on top of the "Edit variables" list, and then add another attribute to variables underneath "Initial value" and "Description", for "Folder". Maybe make an easier way to add multiple variables to the same folder by highlighting all of them, rightclicking, and selecting "Add all to folder".

It's not as ideal as drag and dropping, but it's definitely doable. You'd have to change several things here and there, of course, and for all I know it's far more complicated than it looks, but I would heavily abuse this feature if it were ever put in. Jus' saying. <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Such a feature would surely help organization of projects indeed.

TBH, I don't know if I would use it much. But it wouldn't hurt having this option at disposal if needed and if it's not too much a pain to add.

One thing I'd like to note there, I've noticed it a while ago but didn't took the time to report, you can't see the description for the variable in the Instance variable window columns (see Sully's screenshots, the last column is Initial value, not description)

It would be a nice litlle add imo.

Not bad ideas

Ah yeah, the Instance Variables dialog is a good place to folder organise it, but I'm not convinced by the UI to pick a folder. It would be better to have a dropdown treelist in the events, but I guess that might be a bit fiddly. I don't know, it's a nice idea but we have way too much on our todo list already, maybe I'll come back to it in future.