Is there a way to lock the Layout/Event sheet tabs?

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  • A few things to wrap this up and get something useful out of it.

    Removing the closing buttons of tabs is not going to happen. This is just too of a widely accepted UI convention. On the same note, adding a special and obscure setting that will only ever be used by a handful of people is not going to happen, it's just not good design.

    Adding an option to remove a UI element is basically admitting that it doesn't work, in this case though, it does work and you absolutely need a button to close a tab.

    Having said that I take two things out of this thread:

    1) Adding a little bit of a buffer distance so the close button is not right next to the tab name sounds like a reasonable improvement feature.

    2) Sorting tabs in multiple rows needs some work.

    If you think any of those things will improve C3, you can file a couple of issues in our bug tracker and they will be looked at.

  • When it comes to UI decisions like this, what's your thoughts on adding like a boolean tick box in C3's settings, so that people can choose what they like, with the default being "keep the X on tabs" so that general users will not be affected?

    Is that fair to do, or is it one of those "what if everyone asked for tick boxes for things, then the settings window will be polluted with tick boxes" kind of situations?

    I'm a fan of more customisation, especially if it saves people time or prevents people from wasting time. I'm unaffected by the tab closing stuff, but was curious.

  • The problem is that this kind of settings would pile up and the inevitable conclusion would be a massive dialog with loads of unrelated checkboxes for which you need a manual for.

    Going a little bit further, you could find you want some sort of method to save the custom configuration, because you know that a few months down the line you might open C3 in another computer and of course you forgot about all the customization you did a few months ago.

    In my case I have come across this problem when using text editors, I use Sublime Text when working on C3. It does have a ton of options for customization and initially it seems so cool, but for practical purposes you only want to change a handful of things, namely the color scheme.

    After years of working with it, I find the rest of the options superfluous. The best settings are the default, purely because they are the default. If they weren't the best, they wouldn't be the default.

    To sum it up, I think it's better to work towards reaching default settings which work well for the greatest amount of people.

  • DiegoM,

    And what is the problem to save the C3 settings in the profile? Or store the C3 settings in a c3p file, as you did for Addons.

  • 2) Sorting tabs in multiple rows needs some work.

    If you think any of those things will improve C3, you can file a couple of issues in our bug tracker and they will be looked at.

    I like this as a solution -- if sorting tabs works properly then it's not a big deal if you accidentally close one, you'll just need to open it back up and drag it to the right spot.

    FYI I submitted this as an issue, #5499.

  • Even with a short tab name like "Layout 1", there is a much bigger area to click on the tab to select it than to close it. The X is pretty small and so should actually be difficult to click - like the famously tiny small X button on ads that people complain about being hard to close. How is it possible to repeatedly accidentally click a small button? I don't understand this at all, can someone explain?

  • I mean, to me it seems fair that some people would have inaccurate clicks, everyone uses a computer in their own way, whether it's just casual users that aren't accurate with a mouse (I see it all the time at my day job), or a disability or something.

    The way I look at it, is that someone cares enough about this tab thing to spend the time to write about it in multiple forum posts, it must affect them enough.

    It doesn't seem like a silly "omg can u move this UI element 4 pixels right coz it looks neat" or anything trivial, but sounds like someone getting frustrated about accidently closing the tabs, for whatever reason that may be.

    I will always support the idea of catering to more customisable preferences. Like right now, I wish I could hide columns in the "find" window, simply because I always have to spend time dragging the bars to hide the "event sheet" column, which I often don't need.

  • Even with a short tab name like "Layout 1", there is a much bigger area to click on the tab to select it than to close it. The X is pretty small and so should actually be difficult to click - like the famously tiny small X button on ads that people complain about being hard to close. How is it possible to repeatedly accidentally click a small button? I don't understand this at all, can someone explain?

    I usually name my layouts by what they are;

    Loader, LoaderEvent, Audio, AudioEvents, Splash, SplashEvents, Level, LevelEvents.

    They're usually right next to eachother and you switch between them often. It's just when you accidentally click the any tab x, you have to figure out which you clicked away, find and scroll to the layout/event sheet that you clicked away in the sidebar, double click, and reposition it. It's only one of a handful of small issues that could make life easier if they were fixed.

    So it's not just this, it's also when browsing the forum topics using multiple tabs for different topics when searching for solutions to problems, but that horribly annoying auto drop down menu gets in the way (which I complained about as well but wasn't addressed), or back to the editor, if you click on an object that is on a locked layer, there seems no way to figure out which layer it is on unless you unlock all or each layer seperately, and then you have to click on the object in the right bar again to be able to modify it in the left bar.

    Or the sprite 'angle pointer' that isn't there anymore so you know which way the sprite is pointing visually, or that you can't one-click reload a sprite image/frame anymore, or that you have to select multiple collison points with control instead of shift, where you do use shift to select multiple objects like sprites in the editor, kinda unlogical, or when you load a new sprite image the whole editor tab stops working forever (this issues seems to have disappeared now) and you lose all progress, or....

    Very few issues seem to get attention, I also believe few people used that github (or what was it?) to report issues, which requires you to learn a new interface, register an account, report the issue, show 'proof' and replication of the issue, all that effort, same with suggestions/improvements.. you put in all that effort and MAYBE, just maybe if you get lucky if enough people will vote up your suggestion it might just get some attention and looked at. Sometimes I just get the feeling the Construct team is too tightly run, anything that isn't high on the list is ignored. It took a long time for the Arcade to finally get fixed, and finally overhauled, same with the previous dreaded Scirra asset store which loaded slower than a turtle, if it didn't give you a page error.

    And when you do suggest new things like I did in this topic, you just get a 'it's not going to happen'. I just feel like that, me as a paying customer I am the one working for Scirra instead. And even that volunteer work doesn't seem appreciated. This must be a multi million Dollar business by now, so why not invest more in improvement, invest more in staff. Reporting bugs should be easy, not a task. Maybe integrate a bug page on your site so people don't have to register yet another account and put in effort to report a bug that they didn't even cause in the first place! They're putting in their unpaid time for a product that they paid money for, to you! I don't see how one can see this as acceptable.

    But all business talk aside, I sometimes wonder if anyone in the team actually uses Construct to make games themselves. It's the only way to get into the skin of a game designer; Construct's target audience.

    Making games often involves a considerable portion of repetitiveness. So a solid workflow is important. Anything that interrupts this is more or less a waste of time, especially if you're not the one at fault but are the one that put money into it, not to mention if you aren't heard properly.

    P.S. I'm not by any means disabled or inaccurate with the mouse. I use a 24" screen with a 1920x1080 resolution, the tabs are kinda small anyhow, and I often find myself switching between the Level and LevelEvents tab to code, and make changes in the editor. Which is probably what most people do. I guess I will just rename the layouts for now. It'll result in two unevenly ordered rows of tabs, but you know..

    I went off topic but I just wanted to have said this, C3 is probably one of the best game makers out there, it's not that expensive, although I just feel with the recurring payments (I still strongly prefer to buy once and own it forever like C2) I shouldn't be experiencing all these issues, and you're essentially paying for a product that still isn't finished. I totally understand that more money means more to invest in a greater product. But as a customer you should also be able to see it coming back in the form of a growing product and a heard customer.

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  • Even with a short tab name like "Layout 1", there is a much bigger area to click on the tab to select it than to close it. The X is pretty small and so should actually be difficult to click - like the famously tiny small X button on ads that people complain about being hard to close. How is it possible to repeatedly accidentally click a small button? I don't understand this at all, can someone explain?

    I'd absolutely vote for an option to remove the X and using right-click menu instead. In my view, there's a few additional things to consider:

    • In larger projects, with multiple sheets open and organized, the downsides to accidentally clicking the X are way higher than the upside of having it there.
    • As in any customer experience, the more often a pain point like this occurs, the stronger the negative response to it becomes. At this point, after making this small mistake over a hundred times, it's grown into a large frustration.
    • For tablet users, the cursor isn't nearly as precise as a mouse/trackpad. And you can make a lot accidental clicks.
    • Different Construct themes have different sizes of X and different padding around it (see below).

    We know that our individual experiences don't equate to the average or aggregate experience. As a product grows, as users become more advanced, the need for personalization grows in step.

  • They're usually right next to eachother and you switch between them often. It's just when you accidentally click the any tab x, you have to figure out which you clicked away, find and scroll to the layout/event sheet that you clicked away in the sidebar, double click, and reposition it. It's only one of a handful of small issues that could make life easier if they were fixed.

    I think the biggest issue here is repositioning the new tab when there are multiple tab rows, which is the bug I reported in issue #5499. If that gets fixed, the other steps you mentioned -- figure out which you clicked away, find and scroll to the layout/event sheet that you clicked away in the sidebar, double click -- don't seem too inconvenient considering how infrequently it happens. I accidentally click X maybe once every 8 hours of coding.

    Very few issues seem to get attention, I also believe few people used that github (or what was it?) to report issues, which requires you to learn a new interface, register an account, report the issue, show 'proof' and replication of the issue, all that effort, same with suggestions/improvements.. you put in all that effort and MAYBE, just maybe if you get lucky if enough people will vote up your suggestion it might just get some attention and looked at.

    I submitted my first ticket yesterday with the GitHub approach, and it worked well and wasn't too cumbersome. As for having to go through GitHub, I happen to also use GitHub to manage/backup my C3 projects, it's a great resource that's ubiquitous in the software development world. Highly recommended!

    As someone who works with QA I appreciate the bug reporting process Scirra has put together. Without it they'd be bombarded with non-issues, poorly explained defects, massive projects they need to sift through, etc -- all things that would take them away from important work. They're a limited team with limited resources, let's not forget that.

    And when you do suggest new things like I did in this topic, you just get a 'it's not going to happen'.

    Just yesterday DiegoM said "Rudi55 If you think any of those things will improve C3, you can file a couple of issues in our bug tracker and they will be looked at." Sounds like they're being pretty accommodating :) Like with bugs, Scirra needs to decide which features are in the best interest of the broader community. Limited team, limited resources...

    This must be a multi million Dollar business by now, so why not invest more in improvement, invest more in staff.

    I don't claim to know Scirra's business, but $1m annual revenue would require 10,000 yearly subscribers (@ $100/yr), and I doubt there are that many subscribers based on the Forum activity. Factor in all the employees and the overhead to host their content and I don't see many folks getting rich Scirra. Yet I continue to be surprised at what they're able to achieve and how committed they are to their product. Where else will you find the company Founder/CEO responding to your forum questions?

    I went off topic but I just wanted to have said this, C3 is probably one of the best game makers out there

    Agreed!!! I've always wanted to build games but the other engines are way too complicated for me. C3 has become my passion and has opened doors for so many. Yeah it's not perfect (what is?) but it sure as hell is one of a kind.

  • In order to make well-designed software, it's important to know how and why people do things with it. That's all I'm trying to do here: establish why this is really a problem, understand the situation so it can be best addressed, and then come up with the best way to solve it.

    One of the reasons I'm somewhat surprised by this particular point about X buttons in tabs is there are lots of places in the UI where different clickable options are close to each other: context menus, properties, toolbar buttons, lists of actions, and so on. Aren't those a problem too?

    Perhaps it's just that it's annoying to recover from an accidental click due to the issue with moving tabs. Solving that might mean that there isn't actually such a need to remove the X button. This type of thing is why I'm trying to understand the problem better, rather than just jumping to conclusions and adding workarounds (which as Diego alluded to tend to compound over time, cause bugs, and end in poorly designed software). This is our approach to every aspect of Construct - if someone insists on a change without explanation, it's unlikely we'll act on it, especially as we are always very busy with a huge pile of other things we know really are important. This is also why we have our feature request and bug report systems: they're intended to help make all of this clear so we can actually act on what you want.

  • I haven't read the entire thread so forgive me if it was already mentioned.

    luckyrawatlucky's insanely good Theme Dark seems to have the perfect solution for this already. Only your active tab shows the little x, all others don't have the x. So your tab bar isn't littered with small x buttons but you still have a quicker way to close tabs than right clicking and searching close.

  • luckyrawatlucky's insanely good Theme Dark seems to have the perfect solution for this already...

    You're not kidding, I just installed the theme, the hidden X feature is great and the theme itself is fantastic. Thanks for the tip and to luckyrawatlucky for the theme!

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