A few features I am uncertain exist...

Hello,

I am currently working on a map making "app"(I want to say "game" but its meant to help with making a game more than being a game) for my first game on construct 2 and am facing a couple of issues that I do not seem to find an answer for in the fantastic forum, tutorial and manual collective that the community has here.

So here are my initial questions:

1. Is there a way to re-size the LayoutWidth and LayoutHeight from within the game?

2. Is there a way to re-size the WindowHeight and WindowWidth from within the game?

3. Is there a way to load an image file from within the game you are making and use said file as a background still within the game?

I need this to give initial parameters for the array that will store the grid information that the individual game levels will have. The reason this is necessary is because the values of the array can only be set if I know what the background of the level will look like and having an app that can take this information in and populate the array automatically is a lot less time consuming than doing everything manually. This also makes it so that if down the road I decide to give the player a way to make their own maps I can give them some level of creative freedom when doing so.

4. If it appears that this is not possible and will not be possible within construct 2 any time soon(if at all) what suggestions can the veterans here give me in regards to making this?

Are there other more practical(withing Construct 2's limitations) solutions to my issue?

Will I just have to toughen up and figure out something else to do?

Let me know.

Question 1 and 2

1.)On the layout menu, right click away from any graphics.

2.) Look on the left side menu, it should say layout by default. If you look through it, you will find the height and width.

I did this in order to get my game to load in the arcade.

As for question 3_ Check this guy out, he really helped me...

http://www.youtube.com/user/ConstructDude?feature=csp-in-feed

1 and 2. No. They need to implement this in the official nodwebkit plugin.

3. You can use the snapshot feature for that. (If you dont know how to use it, search "snapshot" on the forums)

not sure this is exactly what you're asking but seems very close:

set window in game... system - set canvas

this scales your layout to new window

you can not set layout width and height independently but you can scale both the same with ... system - set layout scale

not sure I'm following #3 but I've a post about how to load an array on project start elsewhere, seems near the same.

Question 1 and 2

1.)On the layout menu, right click away from any graphics.

2.) Look on the left side menu, it should say layout by default. If you look through it, you will find the height and width.

I did this in order to get my game to load in the arcade.

As for question 3_ Check this guy out, he really helped me...

http://www.youtube.com/user/ConstructDude?feature=csp-in-feed

Hey Burningwood,

Thanks for your reply! So for the first two responses : I am well aware of how to get to those settings. I was more asking if they could be changed within the game (from an event sheet). Sorry if I was unclear about that.

As for the third response, I have been going through his videos, he has a great deal of information in them. I will see if any of it addresses number 3.

1 and 2. No. They need to implement this in the official nodwebkit plugin.

3. You can use the snapshot feature for that. (If you dont know how to use it, search "snapshot" on the forums)

Ok, thank you very much lmchucho, so let me paraphrase my understanding: Basically, this is not implemented and they dont seem to have plans to yet?

As for number 3, I will check this out right after typing this up. However, could you let me know how it is that you think the snap shot feature can be used for my particular situation?

Thanks again!

not sure this is exactly what you're asking but seems very close:

set window in game... system - set canvas

this scales your layout to new window

you can not set layout width and height independently but you can scale both the same with ... system - set layout scale

not sure I'm following #3 but I've a post about how to load an array on project start elsewhere, seems near the same.

Hi Kosiam!

So, for setting the window within the game. Ill help visualize: Lets assume this game / level editor is already made:

1. The game opens up to a main screen. In here we have values we can set, like layoutwidth, layoutheight, windowwidth, windowheight and tilesize(always a square so only one value instead of two) and a little button that allows you to load image files from your computer to the program/level editor.

2. Underneath all of this there is a button that says, generate and a second button that says load.

3. When you fill all the values in( Lets say with: layoutwidth = 1280 layoutheight = 1024, windowwidth & windowheight of 256, tilesize = 32) and give the game an image file of the appropriate size to load. You click generate.

4. After this, you click load and the next layout the game goes to will have the background image set as a background. The layoutwidth and layoutheight the user specified(1280, 1024) the windowwidth and windowheight the user specified(256,256) and the grid set on top of the image will be the number the user specified as well(32).

If this does not help visualizing and thus help with the questions, I apologize. :(

For #3: I am pretty aware of the features that can download the array files. I already have this implemented for this program. It would be similar, yes, but it would be for images instead.

Thanks for the replies!

I gave you the commands to call, but you can work out how to pass the parameters. Shouldn't be hard.

Hello again Kosiam,

So I have tried layout scale and that is unfortunately not what I am looking for. It seems that the layout scale feature is merely a zoom in or out function. It in no way changes the layout's width or height.

I have also just tried canvas size and although it is highly useful( I have a future application for it already) it does not change the window size in any way. It merely makes the whole window(regardless of size) fit inside the browser window at whatever parameters you give it up to a maximum of whatever your screen resolution is(after that the entire layout/window just get bigger beyond the native resolution my browser supports).

This unfortunately gives me nothing in the way of setting up a layout nor window size within the app.

As for your forum post asking about arrays, I am now attempting to figure out how I can implement this with images. If I hit a wall I will probably post again here.

Thanks again for the replies.

oh I see part of the problem, I forgot I had set my window as a sprite on top of the window. I don't see anyway to set the height or width of your window.

The snapshot feature will do the work if you need to save and load an image that fills the whole window (a Background).

I hope the features to resize the window on the official nodwebkit plugin will be implemented in the near future.

You can use the Unofficial plugin now that I remember.

scirra.com/forum/topic60647.html

It has a lot more options, including the resizing, etc. But I dont know if once you export the game the changes made by the plugin will work. Either way you lose nothing by trying.

oh I see part of the problem, I forgot I had set my window as a sprite on top of the window. I don't see anyway to set the height or width of your window.

Okay, thank you very much!

The snapshot feature will do the work if you need to save and load an image that fills the whole window (a Background).

I hope the features to resize the window on the official nodwebkit plugin will be implemented in the near future.

You can use the Unofficial plugin now that I remember.

http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic60647.html

It has a lot more options, including the resizing, etc. But I don't know if once you export the game the changes made by the plugin will work. Either way you lose nothing by trying.

Ok so I seem to understand what the feature does once I checked through a few example capx files. It will take a screenshot of the game window and that can later be used somewhere else in the project(as a background for example). That seems like it has several applications but at the same time maybe I am not understanding(and so I apologize profusely if this should be more obvious to me) but can this also help me by allowing the user of the game to upload his own picture into the game and setting that as a background?

As for the nodwebkit: I am currently poking around that and have gotten(hopefully by what the example capx file can do) what it does. So far i understand this to work as an executable. I have also found that the window re-size feature makes the window as big or small as one could need it. I will test this further to see if it does what I actually intend it to do.

I will also update my initial post with some pictures of how this should work to help others understand what it is I intend to do and maybe I can get more information in the process.

Thanks for the replies! :)