What I don't like about Construct 3

I bought C3 license yesterday and spent about 10 hours editing a big(ish) project - 55Mb, 1000 events.

I must say, it was not a pleasant experience.

1. It CRASHES!

Chrome is constantly running out of memory and dying with that stupid "Oh snap!" message. This often happens when I'm trying to open a big layout. I have 8Gb of RAM, how much more does it need?

Desktop C3 version is no better.

After I repeatedly lost 20-30 minutes of work, I started saving my project after every change. And this leads to the second problem:

2. Saving.

Internet in my country is slow, especially for uploads. Saving 55Mb to a cloud takes 5-10 minutes, so it's not an option.

Saving to a local file is really annoying! You need to press Save, confirm save dialog, wait 1-2 seconds until the file is downloaded, select save location, rename the file, confirm.

In C2 you simply press Ctrl-S and that's it.

3. Keyboard shortcuts.

I've been using C2 for two years and naturally developed a habit of pressing Ctrl-F4 to open Debug Mode or Ctrl-W to close a tab.

I shut my C3 window about a dozen times yesterday! Desktop version can survive Ctrl-F4, but still closes if I press Ctrl-W.

Debug Mode is one of the most frequently used features in Construct. And now it takes 3 clicks to access it!

Menu -> Click -> Project -> click -> Debug -> click

Arrgh...

4. Other browser-related issues.

Event dialogs sometimes lose focus. Pressing Backspace sometimes causes Chrome to display "Press alt-left to go back" instead of deleting last character. These things are rare, but still happen.

5. Built-in editor for files is a nice new feature, but some keyboard combinations don't work there, for example Ctrl-Right, Ctrl-Left.

This makes it hard to edit long lists of values.

6. Interface.

This is just my preference - I like thin window borders. C3 windows are so bulky...

I really hope Scirra will continue to support C2 and not retire it.

As with all these issues I don't think C3 will ever become a good replacement for me.

EDIT from 23 Feb:

I'm a bit of an idiot.

Just realized that I've been using "Desktop shortcut" created from Chrome and thinking that it was the "Desktop build".

(I did download the Desktop build, but forgot to add a shortcut to it)

Can confirm that the real Desktop build works better and doesn't have some of the issues I mentioned above.

I thankfully haven’t had any memory issues since late beta, but random crashes is the thing that keeps me from using the software full time. In chrome, Firefox, and the desktop app the program/browser will just random close. No error, just hard close. I would file a bug report but it’s too random. Sometimes I’ll be using it for 5 minutes, sometimes 30, but it happens enough where I’m sticking with C2.

For now I’m still keeping subscribed to C3 to support further development. I trust that in time these issues will be resolved.

1. I've not seen any reports of this for a long time. I can open 400mb projects on a phone. Please file a bug if you still have issues.

2. Try saving to the local browser instead.

3. The vast majority of keyboard shortcuts in C3 are identical to those in C2 (see Keyboard shortcuts). We've only had to change a few where it performs a browser function like closing the tab, which browser makers don't let pages override.

4. Not seen any cases of this before, please file an issue if you can reproduce them.

5. You can post suggested improvements here: https://construct3.ideas.aha.io

6. Try changing the theme.

Ashley,

1. I don't have any information about these crashes except for a screenshot of "Oh snap" message..

2. Thanks, saving to the browser works fast. But will the save survive Chrome crash? I guess I will still need to save to disk file every now and then.

3. Is there a shortcut for Debug Mode? I couldn't find it.

6. Dark theme does looks better, thanks. Will take some time to get used to its colors.

Hi dop2000!

CTRL+F5 works nice for me to preview in debug mode on Windows.

I suppose you can also do it with ⌘+F5 if you are on macOS.

Sebastien

Ctrl-F5 previews active layout. Most of the time I need to preview the entire project and there is no shortcut for it..

dop2000

Oh yes, I just tested and it's indeed the case. Maybe you can use this following trick, I do it often in my projects/prototypes: Each layout is associated with the same start event sheet and I do a "If the LayoutName system variable is different from the start layout name I want then > Go to the concerned start layout name". It should do the trick!

Sebastien , thanks, that's one option. But I often work on other people's projects and I would really prefer a keyboard shortcut.

— "de rien", you're welcome and agree with you, awaiting for the perfectionist Ashley to improve all these little details that make for us great differences.

Click the three dots on the right top.

Under more tools.

newt , what am I supposed to see there?

There should be some information there about what happened if you get the "aw snap" thing.

Oh, ok, thanks. Will check it next time.

Sebastien

Ctrl-F5 previews active layout. Most of the time I need to preview the entire project and there is no shortcut for it..

F4

Ashley

Sorry, I meant Debug preview. (in Chrome)

It's not a big deal actually, as I'm using the Desktop build where Ctrl-F4 works. If only Ctrl-W were also working...